


Star Wars Episode IX - an adult retelling

by Aviendha69



Series: SW IX and beyond [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Absolute Passion, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Duel of the Fates, F/M, First Order Politics (Star Wars), Fluff and Smut, Grey Jedi, Grief/Mourning, HEA, I'm rewriting the whole TROS, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Loss of Virginity, More plot, Multi, NSFW, Obsession, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Reylo - Freeform, Reylofest, Self-Love, Shameless Smut, Some Plot, TROS-alternate, Temptation, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Ultimate Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:40:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 67,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22443460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aviendha69/pseuds/Aviendha69
Summary: The Force really brings these two together in very intimate ways. Rey's strength and hope are rewarded, even as she learns to use her Dark side. Kylo Ren starts questioning some of his life's choices, what choices he had. Tor Valum and Anakin Skywalker get involved in the battle for Ben Solo's soul, and the integrity of the Galaxy. General Organa's Resistance makes an improbable deal for the greater good. The First Order redefines its primary mission.The first chapters were really me blowing off some steam but then the work became a lot more story-oriented. There's still some adult stuff in there, because,yes, I can.Note: Beta LadyRhi. Repost ofnew improvedchapters is done.
Relationships: Finn/Rose Tico, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Reylo
Series: SW IX and beyond [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1717021
Comments: 72
Kudos: 116
Collections: KYLO/REY, Rey/Ben Solo, Reylo, Star Wars, TROS Reylo Fix-it Fics, reylo trash





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work and will continue to be my favorite. It is "done" but it continues with Slaver's Bane. Writing my other stories, I worked out some key elements that have been integrated into this one, so don't startle at similarities.
> 
> Poe quotes "The Art of War" by Sun-Tzu.  
> Sufi poetry by Rumi is also quoted throughout the story. I did not dare write original poetry.

* * *

Rey was unable to block the Force connections that continued even after Crait. They were only flashes: she would catch glimpses of Kylo Ren - this _wretch_ could not be Ben Solo - in various states of despair or rage, sometimes sitting at his desk with his head in his hands, sometimes standing disheveled and sweaty, lightsaber in hand with a glassy-eyed look. He could remain unmoving for more than a minute before raging again.

This insanity lasted for the better part of a standard month. The first week or so, her appearance would startle him and he would go from one emotional state to the other, screaming incoherently or becoming ominously mute, pointedly ignoring her. The next few appearances, he had a mask on, a different one, even at night. A few days of that, and when she saw his face again it was a pasty mess with raw patches on it from the chafing of metal against soft flesh, the scar she had put there a puffy, angry red that must have burned and itched terribly. 

The connections were brief but frequent, manifesting at least once a day. She learned to keep very still in those moments, as even the smallest gesture could trigger an outburst from him. She wasn't exactly scared, but for that whole month Kylo Ren was a feral animal and there was nothing she could do but witness his madness. No one could have done anything about it.

The intense moments triggered her own grief, leaving her a shaking, crying mess of her own.

***

Kylo Ren was free for the first time in his life.

Other than the horrible humiliation of the loss on Crait, he couldn't remember much after the fading of his father’s “Lucky” dice from his hand. He couldn't even bring himself to try, the stab he felt in his heart at the effort was too much. Somehow, he had made it to the _Steadfast_ , where some aide had guided him to new quarters. 

After that, darkness, pitch black. A terrifyingly empty and silent void alternated with a maelstrom of horrible memories, grasping at him, tearing him apart or pulling him under until he gasped as if drowning in blood. Pain. Screams. The charnel house reek of death. He had always had nightmares, but now that Snoke was dead they were all of his own creation. How he survived the first week after the murder was a mystery.

It must have been Hux who kept him together enough to not implode and take everything down with him. Maybe after the first few assassination attempts failed - leaving horribly dismembered corpses behind - it became clear to the Senior Staff that they would not be rid of their new Supreme Leader short of blowing up the ship he was on. Even then, his Force-sensitivity - or his paranoia, rather - was so amplified he could probably tell if everyone abandoned ship. His power ran rampant through him, burning out of control. Enhanced by his connection to Rey, it had grown immense. He'd almost killed one of his Ren and now even they were terrified of him.

Flashes of light dotted the Darkness and when he realized the Force Bond with Rey of Jakku had survived Snoke's death he tried to hide himself from her with a new mask at first. That had not lasted very long, his skin beginning to peel after the third day of wearing it non-stop and waking up in a fit of claustrophobic panic after a horrible night. He’d finally taken it off. 

The next two weeks were spent recovering enough to function again. Between bouts of absolute madness, he had moments of enough lucidity to make it to the bridge, first for an hour, then progressively more time as he grew stronger. Hux or Pryde would present him with status reports that required little action on his part. They were making most of the decisions now, even as they called him “Supreme Leader”.

Every day Kylo Ren asked if any trace of the Resistance had been found, keenly aware that he traded power with Hux and Pryde in exchange for indulging in his pursuit. It was shameful to be so focused on a lone scavenger - even if she was the Last Jedi - when the war demanded his attention, but the nightmares pushed him on. The Bond was strong enough between them now that he was able to sense Rey from across the galaxy. Knowing she was still out there, still connected to him, calmed him. 

Resigned to biding his time impatiently, he started taking an interest in the duties of being the Supreme Leader of the First Order.

**

Eventually, the nightmares faded to their habitual frequency. Being alone in his head meant a different kind of loneliness, but also a return of intimacy.

The last several years had been a period of denial, of treating his body like some beast of burden even as he fed it, trained it, washed it, and trained it again. Even as he kept his mind separate from it as much as he could when Snoke decided it was time for a lesson that ultimately ended in punishment. Even as he cared for the wounds afterwards. His body was an _object_ ; it had not really been his. Kylo Ren had surrendered it to his Master. 

Until recently.

He started drawing again, listening to music, swimming, and reading poetry. Simple pleasures that calmed and soothed him. Then one evening when he tossed about in his bed, unable to read anymore, but too restless to sleep, he felt a part of himself stir for the first time in years.

Could he find some relief, some pleasure in this dejected, lonely world he’d made for himself? He, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren. Alone in his quarters.

It was strange at first, re-discovering a part of himself he had been policed on until he had given it up entirely. He was surprised the arousal had even manifested, like it had woken from a long slumber. He stared at his erect penis as if it was an alien thing for a while, and then grasped it and beat at it detachedly, thinking he could satisfy the urge efficiently and be done with it. After a few minutes of mechanical stroking, it went numb, and he let it go in frustration. He was still hot and wanting, but he was not doing what his body wanted. His body wanted affection. 

He hesitated, then put his hand on his chest and closed his eyes, feeling his heart beat, listening to his own breathing. He was not going to die, he decided. He let his hands move over himself, memory stirring of the weeks before his heart had been broken years ago, when he’d thought a girl he had met cared about him. He had offered his body to her, thinking it worthy of giving and receiving some kind of comfort in return. He remembered how good she had made him feel about himself.

Before Snoke had intervened and put an end to that. 

His mind trailed to another memory, to the last time he'd been with a woman, back when his face had been intact and he was just another Knight of Ren. They had all stopped in a cantina and he had drunkenly allowed himself to be led to an upstairs room, goaded by his fellow Rens to “get some.” But it had been a sad affair, her practiced technique making short work of him. Few words had been exchanged, and no feelings involved. 

It had been and meant nothing.

The disappointment had been as empty and sad as those other women’s embrace, daughters of generals or senators’ wives seeking the political power they thought to gain from associating with him. They had tried to conquer the great Kylo Ren, Darth Vader's Heir. When he’d realized the deceptions, he’d stopped seeing them altogether. They merely drained his strength, distracted him from his studies and training. Snoke had mocked him ruthlessly. Then he had made it very clear that his only contact with a woman should be through violent domination.

He’d found the act revolting and chosen celibacy, instead. Afterwards, with Snoke constantly surveilling him, even private pleasure was abandoned.

Now that he was alone and free of his former Master’s intrusion, he let himself feel the long planes and slopes of _his_ body, muscle and bone under skin kept from the touch of anyone else for so long. His fingertips ran along his scars, and he felt where his skin was still soft and unmarked. He felt where it was bare, and where it was fuzzy, and where it was hairy. He touched his breast and felt his nipple tingle; he felt the heated flesh between his legs and the heft of his testicles, filled with a life that was being wasted. He brought his fingers to his face and smelled his own musk, tasted his own essence.

When he took himself in hand again, it was with a gentle touch, like taming and rewarding an animal -- his own animal. He caressed himself, and this time the _feeling_ was there. Instead of being separate from it, he let himself sink into his own body and finally there was _pleasure_. When he climaxed it was a quiet release, subdued even, but it felt good and that was really the only thing that mattered. 

There was a flash of shame but it passed quickly: he was done with that. He was thirty years old, a man.

***

The connections tapered off when he seemed to calm down and Rey had time to reflect on what that could mean. Such an extended period of rage could not be solely because she’d rejected him. The nightmares she gleaned from Kylo’s mind through the bond had to have been worse than his normal fare, or he would have died from the long-term exhaustion alone, to say nothing of the soul-crushing despair. After the second week of Rey waking up in a terrified sweat, crying in the middle of a briefing, or being wrenched out of her meditations shaken and upset, Leia came to see her. Whatever had passed between them, Leia was still Ben Solo's mother and she felt a connection to him; she felt Rey's connection to him, too. 

“It’s like he’s gone mad,” Rey told her.

The older woman thought back to when she had first suspected Snoke’s influence over her boy and shared what she could with the confused young woman who’d been tied to him through the Force for some obscure reason. 

“Snoke had a grip on Ben. It was the bond like you say you have now. It existed almost from birth,” Leia told her.

Rey’s eyes widened as she listened, thinking of the malevolent being who’d dominated Ben’s life for so long. ‘ _I cannot be betrayed_ ,’ his Master had crowed and the memory of it made her shiver.

“Now, that bond has snapped,” Ben’s mother went on. “I think he put great faith in your new connection.”

“He’s lost,” Rey lamented bitterly. “And I have no control over this Bond." On one connection she had reached out to him and put a calming hand on his shoulder. He had slapped it away. "And I’m not going over to see him again, not after what he put us through on Crait.”

“He’s just freed himself from his tyrant,” Leia counseled, resting a warm hand on her arm. “He sounds like a caged animal looking at the opened door, terrified to leave. Give him time.”

Rey looked at her mentor hopefully. If Leia was right, there was still hope for Ben Solo, and where were any of them without hope? 

As time passed, Rey went on to see, there was improvement in the feelings she gleaned from across the mysterious Bond -- _much_ improvement.


	2. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This all started as a dirty dream, but a few pages in and there is a lot more I can do with this. Kudos are appreciated, but comments are _needed_.

After another grueling week of trying to assume his new responsibilities, the now _Supreme Leader_ Kylo Ren stalked wearily to his quarters; the day was done, and as usual, he laid down in his bed, book cast aside, alone.

_Rey._

He thought of her face as he’d seen it last: disappointed at his proposal. Why had she refused? And why had she spared him, when he had been knocked out and vulnerable after the blast? 

What could he have done differently? 

He thought again of those few minutes in the elevator as he’d escorted her to Snoke’s throne room -- she’d been right there! So close to him, she had looked up at him with such trust. 

He should have...what?

 _You should have kissed her_. A stray, ridiculous thought. 

What? He, a disfigured, irredeemable monster, kissing her?

He thought again of how she had carved that scar onto his face as they’d fought in the snowy forest on Starkiller Base. _So much rage_! As consuming and as strong as his own. Those fiery eyes and that face -- that glorious, perfect face -- how it had glowed in the clashing light of their lightsabers. When she’d closed her eyes as he held her there on the edge of the precipice; she’d looked so vulnerable, yet so confident. It was as if she somehow knew he couldn't bring himself to hurt her. And she’d been right. He couldn't. He knew her face, as though she’d been drawn from his memories, part of his soul. 

When she'd come out of that state of calm, filled with Darkness… he'd felt real fear then. Fear and something else. He couldn't quite put a word to it, but had she killed him then he could have welcomed it. Instead, he was tortured with doubt as to how he could find his way back to her.

_I should have kissed her_

And then what -- recite poetry to her? 

He mulled over the idea. He did have a few books of poetry in his library, some Sufi he’d spent hours pouring over once, before… all this. He should bring them out again, he considered.

_No, no! What am I thinking?_

Then his mind wandered to the battle in the ruined throne room, the way she’d been so strong and sure, dispatching the guards one by one, her movements a fiery dance. For an exhilarating moment, they had stood back to back, bumping into each other as they’d both sought to adjust to fighting in tandem. She’d grabbed his hip for balance. He could still feel the pressure of her palm on him, the thrill that had coursed through his veins at the contact even as the familiar invigoration of his Focused Rage rose to fuel the fight. 

Another memory surfaced. When they had touched hands in that little hut, her fingertips had been so cold. He'd wanted to warm them, to bring them to his lips and blow on them until they were rosy with renewed heat. 

To kiss them.

She still felt so close to him now, despite the distance and all that had passed. She had tried to soothe him once, but he had pushed her away. He wouldn't push her away now. 

Maybe he shouldn't be thinking of her this way but there was no helping it. His memories of Rey caused his body to stir, becoming insistent, swelling until he could no longer ignore it. He grew hot, heat radiating from him as emotions drove him into a state of powerful need. There was no point in trying to sleep now, so he cast the sheet aside and pushed down his shorts. Reaching for his manhood, he began stroking as he had allowed himself again.

He saw her angry face again, the look from the forest. How beautiful she was, he thought feverishly. Her remembered rage sent a spark of excitement through him, but the delicate angle of those flashing eyes moved his hand into a more tender rhythm. He couldn't explain it. Not even attempting to, he caressed himself softly, devotedly, as he imagined he would caress her -- as he _should_ have caressed her, instead of fighting her. His heart beat faster, his breath came harder, pressure built and he felt himself swell…

**

Rey woke with a start, thinking she’d heard a sigh. Opening her eyes, she saw him immediately, only an arm’s-span away from where she had been sleeping, as if he were laying beside her, so impossibly close. 

The Force was funny that way. 

As she had before, she was careful to make no sound and lie still so as not to distress him. She'd seen him come down from the Madness though, and now Kylo Ren was just lying in bed like her, eyes closed ... but he definitely wasn’t sleeping. His hair was spread around his head like a dark crown, breath deep, but ragged. Like this, her view of him was unhindered; his muscular chest and shoulders were bare, scars tracing ridges across them. Her eyes traveled curiously down the length of his body before widening in surprise. 

He was completely naked. That wasn’t all, though. He was…

Rey suddenly recognized what he was doing and froze. She had a flashback of the day she’d surprised a man outside her home on Jakku, a lifetime ago already, hungrily staring at her, pumping away at himself in animalistic hunger. Outraged, she’d belted him with her staff and he’d scurried away like a cowardly sand-rat. 

Had Kylo Ren come to harass her that way? 

Peering at him suspiciously, she noticed that his eyes were still closed. He didn’t know she was there, she realized. Furthermore, what he was doing was somewhat different than the lecherous oaf in the sand. Kylo was slowly caressing himself, taking his time and being surprisingly gentle as he stroked his hardened shaft. She suddenly thought of the loneliness she’d discovered in his soul from the years spent so desperately alone. It made her gaze soften a bit as it trailed in the wake of his left hand as it traveled across his chest, down his side, and over his hip to his thigh, which he raised to reach his scrotum. He cupped his testes briefly before his hand moved back up again. There was a line of soft, dark down over his lower stomach, plunging from his navel to his groin.

Realizing she was in a bind, Rey wondered what to do. She tried, but couldn’t cut their connection off and she didn’t dare move. So, she was left sitting there, staring transfixed at the beauty of him as Kylo pleasured himself. It moved her in unexpected ways. Frowning slightly at the long, jagged scar trailing down his face and onto his thick pectoral, she felt conflicted as she considered the beauty she’d marred when she’d struck him down in rage. The triumph she’d felt in that moment had been heady. Twice now, she could have killed her enemy as he lay helpless, and now again he lay before her, unarmed and unaware. 

The memory of his beaten body lying defeated in the snow ignited something in her, and the sight of him like this fanned it into a flame. Rey’s fingers twitched. It would be so easy to reach out and touch him.

Slowly, a glistening drop of thick liquid eased from the tip of his glans, catching her attention and distracting her from her anxious plans. Her eyes followed as his thumb reached to gather it and spread an oily slickness in an expanding circle around the florid tip.

Rey jerked in shocked reaction, staring disbelievingly at Kylo’s languorous movements, his stroking fingers. She _felt_ it.

Breathing faster, her own body inexplicably began to react to the touch of Kylo’s hands over his own skin. Her clit pulsed as if he were touching her. It was terrible, frightening. This wasn’t something she should be feeling, especially not from _him_. 

Suddenly flushed and hot Rey couldn’t quite stop herself from reaching her hand down almost as though it moved of its own volition. She touched her mound and her whole body tingled, beginning to pulse in anticipation, beckoning for her to relieve this growing tension. She squeezed her mound to try to contain the swelling, but of course it only made it worse -- much worse.

Then Kylo stopped. 

**

He was imagining touching Rey, but suddenly it was as if he could actually feel her. A squeeze on his glans surprised him and he opened his eyes in bewilderment. That was not what he’d been doing. 

All around him was darkness. Was there someone there? He listened, hearing nothing, but then felt his glans pulse with sensation again. It was strong enough to make him catch his breath and he resumed his firm strokes, moving faster as he became hungry for more.

And there was more -- so much more -- than he usually experienced like this. He stopped the pumping glide of his hand, but the sense of fingers caressing along his throbbing flesh continued. It was different, incredibly intense as though it was … _amplified_. He moaned as the fire built inside him.

*

Rey heard him, felt him. When he stopped, she started. 

Keeping her gaze on the shadowy form beside her, she saw him open his beautiful almond-brown eyes... but Kylo did not see her, she realized; she was cloaked from his view in ethereal darkness. She hadn’t touched herself for some time, but now she was too excited and there was no pondering the morality of this illicit tryst. 

The moment for pleasure was _now_. 

Her fingers reached through the lips of her vulva and she found the sticky, welcoming wetness. She glazed her clit with the gathered slick and it somehow felt absolutely huge, as though she could stroke it for long, hot inches on end. She shivered and her left hand reached for her breast, thumb and forefinger grasping a nipple. 

Rey closed her eyes in rapture.

*

There was definitely something going on, Kylo realized. That time, he heard her as she moaned softly. When he opened his eyes again, his seeking gaze just managed to make her out in the dark: The _Girl_. 

Rey was there with him, in his bed by some miracle of the Force. She was no girl now, however. She was laying on her back like him, almost by his side, her thin shift pulled up above her waist, her small, firm breasts peeking through the unlaced top mesmerizingly. That pinch he felt on his sensitized nipple was her hand squeezing and rolling the pebbled peak on her own chest.

Rey was so tiny compared to him, but her slightly raised legs were long, her hips wide, and her stomach firm with muscle he could respect. He saw with a heavy breath that her other hand was moving around in a forest of brown curly hair, damp as a lush jungle. He could feel her tease the hidden gem he knew nestled there, swelling, pulsing with need. 

Did she know he could see her? Uncertain and unwilling to frighten her away, he dared not make a sound or move. At the sight of Rey’s wanton writhing, his cock was throbbing insistently and he could no longer hold himself immobile. As she pinched down on her nipple, sending a bolt of pleasure through his chest, his hand was compelled to reach for it. The tight tip felt big and so did the flesh around it, round and firm and more than it should be on a man’s chest. He cupped it and Rey immediately arched her back in response.

 _Maker, what was this?_ _This_ wasn't in the Jedi texts. He briefly tried to ponder the wonder of this unique Force-bond that tied them together, against all known laws of physics, when a shudder shook them both, tearing his mind away from the mysteries of the cosmos. 

Rey’s hand traveled to her thigh squeezing it and her hips lifted alongside his as she started rocking, taking him with her. She tilted her head back and a moan escaped from his throat. Their hands were moving faster now, racing toward a reciprocal feeling unlike either had ever reached before. If she stopped rubbing, he stopped feeling, and if he stopped stroking, she grunted in frustration. 

Beside him, Rey cupped and caressed full gonads as she glided down an impossible length that could not be seen in her hand. Likewise, he impossibly discovered a secret entrance and his fingers explored it eagerly. Suddenly, he remembered something about a place that was tucked away inside and found it with a curl of his finger. When he pushed against it an explosion broke over them both. 

He whimpered as she grunted. She spent him all over his stomach in glistening ropes, and his fingers were trapped inside a locked passage that held him in a throbbing embrace. 

They were granted barely more than a relieved sigh before the bond was abruptly severed. 

He looked over in dismay to find himself once more alone in his chambers. Shaking with release, he felt himself spent, but not empty. 

There was Light burning on inside him and it was fueled by her.

**

She lay on her cot, thankful for the closed door. Desire was something she had thought dead and dry like that wilted desert Rose she’d left on Jakku. Kylo Ren woke a Dark Desire in her, however. He called to her from the depths of her soul, as if he'd always been there. Not quite lurking, not like that. 

More like a part of her she needed to be whole.

***

A week passed and the Bond teased at them again. 

_*Did you feel it?*_

A blush. 

* _Yes. It was good._ * 

Another blush. 

* _It_ was _good._ *

_*Would you come to me now?*_

An indrawn breath.

_*No.*_

***

A couple more weeks passed.

"I'm still angry with you," Rey challenged as she stared back up at him through the Force Bond. He'd used her, used her to trick and overthrow Snoke and usurp the Throne.

Their shared caresses meant nothing compared to the situation they were in now, the Resistance still struggling to resist _him_ , the Supreme Leader of all the misery in the Galaxy.

" _You're_ angry? You're angry with _me_?!" Kylo flared in disbelief. _She'd_ been the one to betray _him_. Rey had abandoned him the moment he'd offered her everything, all that he’d had to give. 

"You should have stopped them,” she railed at him. “You _could_ have stopped them firing at the rest of us -- at your mother!"

He gasped at the audacity. She'd actually _said_ it. Resentful, his chest nonetheless tightened at her charge because she was right. He knew what he should have done. 

For a moment there was silence.

"Would you have joined me if I had stopped it?"

"I could have. But why should I? "

"I offered you the Galaxy, Rey. I still could."

"The Galaxy is not yours to offer, Ben."


	3. Beautiful Monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few more weeks pass. Kylo's life is boring. His passions are not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW// Dubcon Somnophilia - but it turns out ok.

This Force-bond was more than two people should have to deal with.

It didn’t seem to care what time it was or what they were doing, though - thankfully - usually it connected them when they were alone. Most times, they were just flashes of daily routine: eating at his desk, reading in her bed, sleeping, training. 

This time, he had just come out of the ‘fresher, rubbing his hair with his towel. After a few moments, the world muted and he felt her presence. 

He turned around and saw she was sitting on her bed, furiously trying to keep her eyes on the sacred Jedi text she held close to her flushed face. He turned back and continued toweling his hair as if he hadn't noticed, trying to think of how he could handle the situation. He wasn't about to jump embarrassedly to cover himself up. He had his dignity. Yielding, he decided to ignore her, resuming his ablutions. 

Then he felt a hand on his back. 

He didn't startle at hersoft touch. He knew the spot, the scar there, and how many criss-crossed his back. Each failure and each lesson that had put them there was burned into his memory as well as his body. His scars were the proof of his devotion to the Dark Side. 

Laying the towel down on the vanity, he said nothing. There wasn't any shame. He had bought and paid for his power in blood. Snoke had been a cruel Master and Kylo Ren had killed him to spare her. 

Rey said nothing as her fingertips explored his scars one by one. He endured her inspection. At first, her touch was light, just prodding them carefully, then she traced the muscle along his spine with her palm and the touch emboldened into something more like a caress. She padded around him, moving her hand over his shoulder, down his muscular arm, then reaching for his flank, his hip. He heard her take a deep breath and then she stepped in front of him, coming into his line of sight; what he could see of her face was still flushed. She would not look at his face, keeping her gaze focused on his chest. Reaching for the scar she had left on his breast, her gentle touch crossed his chest to the one on his left shoulder. Finally, she slid her warm palm down to the crater made by Chewie's bowcaster on his left flank, the one that was the price of killing his father. It was the deepest scar he had. 

He stood still, knowing he could see his manhood, but he was controlling himself. He would not spoil this moment with some animalistic impulse. She moved around him again, her hand returning to his back, and he started to wonder what she wanted from this intimacy. Her hand travelled down his spine again, down to the top of his buttocks and then he felt her step closer. Her warm breath fanned across his skin briefly before she kissed him between his shoulder blades. 

He faltered. 

"Don't. _Please_ ... don't," he whispered.

She moved back and he felt relief mixed with loss as she faded away. Without Snoke to control him, he was being seduced, but it was devoid of malice, pure. He felt her desire to be with him - his person, not the power of Kylo Ren, or the prestige of the Supreme Leader. She was just as fascinated as he was. The Force would bring not just their minds together, but their bodies also; in this moment, he knew they would eventually meet in the flesh. 

Rey didn't know why she was attracted to so much torment. It was like a reflexion of her own suffering, if more physical. She had been nothing, abandoned. He had been everything, abused. Somehow, she knew his pain like it was a part of her. 

***

Hux was talking again. A monotone drone: counting ships, supplies, oranges. He didn’t really know, his attention trailing off contemplatively to the immense port window showing the universe they were travelling. Somewhere out there, a Scavenger girl was going about her day, fixing engines for his mother’s ships. Suddenly he realised there was an expectant silence. They were all looking at him, at Supreme Leader Kylo Ren. He jerked upright and started to stand up. 

“Well done, General Hux. We are done here,” He said mechanically through the modulator in his repaired mask. It was too hot and he longed to take it off. He stood and turned to leave. 

“Supreme Leader, we haven’t discussed strategy yet,” called General Hux.

“What strategy? The Resistance is disbanded, there are only a handful of them now.” 

“There is but a handful, but they are not destroyed. As long as even one of them is left alive, there will be those that chafe against our bond. There will be Anarchists trying to undo our Order. The Galaxy needs our Order to function properly,” Hux was agitated now, his eyes widening with fanaticism. 

Armitage Hux loved the Order. He loved how everything on this ship - the halls, the kitchens, his quarters, his uniform, his  _ hair _ \- everything was in its proper place, clean and orderly. If Kylo prompted him, he would proudly list every single item and their respective locations on this ship, maybe even in the whole fleet. Kylo should have felt grateful to have such a capable man under his command. He could walk out of this room and the Order would run smoothly without him. 

He could walk out and he would be a fool. 

General Hux was also an ambitious man, a man who knew Kylo Ren well enough to tell that the Supreme Leader had a new weakness: compassion. Rage and tantrums he was accustomed to - though they irritated him greatly - but compassion could not be allowed to grow, to grow  _ wild _ , when so much was at stake. To the general’s mind, there was no other explanation for allowing the rebel scum to run free. 

Hux stared at him expectantly.

Kylo Ren had to focus on holding onto the power he’d stupidly grabbed for himself, but it was like holding a  _ cathar _ by the tail. With Snoke gone, it was harder to find rage, and that was the basic truth of it. There was plenty of fear and more than enough shame to make up for it, but even the anger he’d felt towards Luke was gone, faded like his old mentor had. 

He was free, and he was lost. And he was the Supreme Leader of it all. 

He sat back down. Patrols would be dispatched to some areas they had not been in for a few months. Levies and taxes would be increased, as would raids for new troopers. That was the strategy. There was no news of the Resistance fighters anywhere, only some unfounded rumors. The last three raids had been on empty camps seemingly abandoned only hours before troops got there, as if the Resistance had known they were on their way. 

Ren stifled a relieved sigh. His mother was safe. Rey was safe. His mask was smothering him.

When the session was concluded, he couldn’t leave the meeting room fast enough but he also could not appear to hurry. General Pryde was there, conversing with Hux in a quiet tone, discussing details, no doubt. Or conspiracy.

He finally made it to his quarters where he tore off the mask, his face a burning, sweaty mess. He washed it, then looked at himself in the mirror. The scar was less apparent now, though it pulled uncomfortably, especially over his neck. It was Captain Phasma who had found him in the snowy woods, and he had thanked the  _ Maker _ it had not been Hux. The woman was as big and strong as he was - she had survived her fall on the  _ Supremacy _ \- and she had fireman-carried him to the shuttle before he was transferred to the infirmary on the escape ship. Her men had been ordered to silence, and they had thankfully obeyed. She was still trying to make up for her blunders and he figured she would have made an excellent Knight of Ren, had the rules been different. 

Every time he saw that scar across his face, it reminded him of Rey, of her strength. 

He'd started reading and researching this new manifestation of the Force, allowing them to...  _ to touch _ like that from star systems away. There were hints in the Sith archives, but he would have to find some copies of the Jedi texts to know more. Rey had those books, now. 

He reached out to her with his mind. Sometimes the Force allowed it. Sometimes he could block an incoming link, though it took effort. It was a fickle thing. Right now, he could sense that she was unavailable, training with his mother. Rolling his shoulders, he decided he should train, too.

Vicrul wasn’t quite recovered enough to challenge him again, so the Knights made excuses to avoid him. He made do with the training bots but, aided by the Force he soon figured their newest algorithm and the session turned into a boring grind. It left him wanting. 

When he returned to his chamber, sweaty and tired, he made for the shower, but then he saw that the poetry book he’d ordered had been delivered to his quarters. 

Rami -  _ Sufi Poetry _ . Stepping over and picking it up eagerly, he opened it at random:

“ _ For the Mystic Lover who’s intoxicated by the wine of mystical union with the Beloved - in his or her Faith - House of God or Temple of Idols are the same. _ ”

Old religions of an Old Earth.

“ _ The Mystic Lover intoxicated by the wine of mystical union with the Beloved _ ”

He pondered that line over and over in his head. 

_ He wanted to kiss her. _

_ Maker! _ Was the whole universe conspiring to unravel him? He felt like hitting things again, but changed his mind when he spied the decanter of wine on his desk. He poured a glass of jewel-toned liquid and took a deep draught to slake his thirst; thinking. 

The Force-bond had created an intimacy between them he felt certain had rarely happened before, if ever. It had revealed him to her at his most vulnerable moment, and she had not mocked him; to his surprise, she had joined him. His body remembered and he felt his thirst intensify. 

" _ Peace is a lie, there is only Passion, _ " remembering the first line of the  _ Sith _ codec, he took another swallow of the fine, dry vintage. It stung his parched throat.  _ Kriff _ ! The girl certainly stirred passion in him now. The Jedi denied Passion to favor Serenity, and he had tried to follow that precept. Oh, how he had  _ tried _ , and ultimately failed. 

Coming into the Dark Side had not truly sated his passions either, however intense his training had been. Sure, his studies, his victories as a Knight of Ren, even calligraphy were all pleasures, but ... passion? 

It was this  _ Fire _ .

"Through Passion, I gain Strength," he quietly continued his pondering. 

_ Rey is the key to my Power _ .  _ That is her part in this story. In  _ my _ story. _ He'd known that for a while, but their Force-bond had revealed how. He leafed to another random page in the book of Sufi:

> _ Love is neither a tale nor a game. _
> 
> _ Love is such a powerful torrent _
> 
> _ that no one can stand in front of it. _
> 
> _ Love is such a blazing fire which, when it blazes up, _
> 
> _ burns away everything except the Beloved. _

He put down the book. When they had found the passage through which the Resistance had escaped, they had found huge boulders cast to each side of the opening outside. Rey had done that. She had punched through a mountain to free her friends.

He remembered having friends; before all this. Before he had power. 

The wine hit him like a slap and all of a sudden, he wanted to  _ take _ her. He wanted to push her down to the ground, to rip her clothes and her wraps and all her protections off and expose every part of her for the galaxy to see her for the Hubris-filled Jedi that she was. He wanted to push himself on top of her and bite her throat, drink her blood and ... _ and he’d have to take off his mask. To feel her he would have to take off his gloves his armor his breeches _

He was mad again, ranting:

_ he would have to be naked with her and he would push his breast against her breast and he would push his legs against her legs and and _

He would  _ break _ her. Or she would  _ kill _ him. Either way, he would be free. Right now, he was on  _ fire _ and he reached for her.

She was  _ asleep _ .

In her slumber, her face was at rest, not guarded, defiant, or angry. He was thrown: he had thought to crush her beneath him like some conquering beast and there she lay: blithely asleep. He walked over to her and knelt quietly beside her cot. It must have been warm where she was, for she had no covers on, only her thin shift.

_ The Great Supreme Leader  _ Kylo Ren, a Dark Lord, was feeling... things. Something stirred within him and it was much closer to his heart. His heart that now beat at him like a fist, as if someone else was trying to break out of him. In contradiction to why he’d reached for her in the first place, he suddenly wanted to cradle her in his arms and guard over her while she slept. He thought back to when he had strapped her to that ridiculous contraption in the interrogation chamber, watching over her and waiting for her to wake up. 

_ He could have just taken her then he could have _ … 

That  _ fire _ in him again.

He resolved to let her sleep. He leaned over to peck her forehead, thinking to give her a chaste kiss and leave without her even knowing that he’d come.

“Ben…” she murmured, still asleep. She stirred. Her arm stretched, curling over her head and he could see the soft fuzz of her armpit. A faint musk wafted to him from her sleep-warmed skin and his breath caught. He wanted to rest his head on her chest and lay there, breathing her in, listening to her heart beat. Instead, he was stuck in indecision, hovering over her as though held in the grip of the Force.

“Ben…” she sighed again. She shifted, stretching her full length and moaned. Her whole body flushed suddenly, hips settling flat. A leg shifted and her thighs parted, drawing his gaze helplessly. The intoxicating scent of her rose up to meet him from that hidden heat, greeting him, inviting him. For a moment, he felt so light-headed he thought he would pass out.

Now he _really_ wanted to kiss her. He wanted to _bury his face in her._

The cot was narrow; kneeling beside it, he bent down to her. Her shift was so thin he could see right through it - the rose-tinted nipples of small breasts, the little dark hollow of her navel. It was unlaced, open at the top and rucked up over her knees, all the way up to mid-thigh from Rey’s sleepy movements. There was nothing else between them but the thin film of fabric and her little forest of hair. Leaning in, he let it fill his senses, dark and pungent like a flower in bloom. He blew softly onto her, a hot breeze, and she shifted again. Did her hips rise? 

She moaned and her hand came down her body, grazing her breast on the way down, past her stomach, trailing to her mons. She gave it a squeeze and moaned again.

He closed his eyes and let instinct guide him,moving forward towards the musk and the beckoning moisture. His lips met her thigh first, and he kissed it. The skin was extraordinarily soft. Her breathing changed and for a second he was terrified he’d woken her, that she would push him away.

He, the Supreme Leader Kylo Ren. Terrified the  _ Scavenger _ would push him away from his supplication, kneeling at her altar. She was his goddess and he, her devoted pilgrim. She didn’t push him away; and he kissed her soft skin again. Lips running along silken skin, he felt his loins throb. Fully dressed, his black leather armor constrained him. He’d barely removed his gloves to leaf through the book earlier. 

"... _ intoxicated by the wine of mystical union _ ..." 

Her hand came away as his mouth trailed upwards, pulling the fabric away with it. She was exposed to him.

He went right for the center of her and his mind blanked a little as he pressed into that dewy flesh. Her  _ taste _ ! Clean, but alive and salty and sweet, all at once. He nudged her folds open with his nose and lapped it up. His touch was careful, even though he wanted to take hungry bites out of her, but he so desperately wanted to please her first. 

And then, wonder of wonder, her hand came down to rest on his head as though accepting his offer and she pushed him onward encouragingly.

She’d pushed him closer! He’d been accepted! 

He found that concealed rosebud with his tongue and pulled it between his lips as his hand came up to part her, to reach for the heart of her. Rey’s back arched and she gave a great shudder, then her eyes opened, but he did not see her looking at him - he was too lost in the taste, the feel, the smell of her to see anything, now. Suddenly, her legs splayed open and he moved in to put his whole mouth over her in his thirst, drinking from her in earnest, like a man finding a fountain in a desert. She roiled beneath him and moaned in pleasure. 

When he did look up at her, Rey was arched back and flushed with ecstasy. He tongued her as deeply as he could reach, discovering where the taste of her changed and became a tangy secret. As he laved her, her inner passage started to pulse, demanding something solid, something  _ more _ . Craving her pleasure, he brought his thumb in near and pressed against her lips as she moved to meet it. Was he the one that pushed it in, or did she swallow it? 

She let out a loud _ “Aaah yes” _ and trembled, quivering around his thick thumb with delight. He couldn’t keep up with the torrent that came gushing from her then.

He was on fire, burning as she was set alight. His  _ soul _ was on fire and their eyes met and he realized she was very much aware of him ... and she wanted more. 

She wanted  _ him _ . She  _ wanted _ him.

Then the bond broke.

He came back to himself in his chamber, sweaty, disheveled, and kneeling on all fours on the floor in the cold darkness. Any fantasy of crushing her beneath him was gone, now. He wanted only to serve - to serve her. Suddenly, he broke and wept.

Supreme Leader Kylo Ren had fallen.

*

Rey lay there, sweaty, disheveled, empty in the darkness. Feeling the bond suddenly break them apart had wrung a loud cry from her. She’d been having more and more arousing dreams of him lately - leaving her with want she tried in vain to satisfy - and now it seemed her fantasy had called him to her, and he had come. He had done something for her she had never known before and now her desire was threatening to overwhelm her completely. Rey had felt him rage and calm like wave upon wave of storm followed by gentle rain. Though she did not know the conclusion to his storm, she felt he would have a hard time remaining in the Dark Side, now. She had to help him get away from the Order and hide him from them. Hide him with her - within her.

_ Her Beautiful Monster. _


	4. Dark Rey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Kylo Ren rules reluctantly over the Galaxy, he receives unexpected visit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be careful what you wish for

Rey’s training was getting nowhere, she felt. Whatever exercise she put herself through - the obstacle courses, the meditation, the sparring with Leia’s long-disused saber, the shooting range, the piloting, her academic classes - none of them brought her peace. And that meant she was unable to fix the Skywalker lightsaber. 

She made progress, but whenever there were lulls between connections, sometimes as long as a whole week, she would start longing for him again and stumble. The sound of his voice saying “ _Please_ ” played through her mind again and again. She would see his face, his dark almond eyes, the way he looked at her with that hunger. No, it wasn’t a hunger, exactly; not so much that he wanted to possess her. It was...

Hope.

He looked at her with _hope_.

What if she had taken his hand? What would have happened then? Could she just have told him to spare the Resistance fleet? Should she have given in first?

No. It was like Leia had said. He had to find his own way. As much as he lit fires in her with his touch, she had to stand her ground in the Light, force him to come over to her. But _oh_ , it was hard for her to not just make that fateful step herself and _take_ him.

***

When next she appeared to him, he was sitting in his throne room. Hux was introducing a Colonel Rtfguyhl to him, who had just distinguished himself in battle during the conquest of the Woeurlj System. The Woeurlj were a species of insectoids. There were many varieties and all were brightly colored. Some of them, like the ones from Col. Rtfgyuhl’s planet, had vestigial wings. 

He would have rather been anywhere else but he had nowhere to go, and anyway his Knights of Ren would have hunted him down and attempted to kill him or take him back if he were to abandon the First Order. He was not sure he would survive such a confrontation. Certainly, a few of his - friends? companions - would die in the exchange. 

As Kylo listened to Hux and Pryde’s lengthy recount of Col Rtfguyhl’s accomplishments, he heard something in his General's tone: contempt for the war hero before them.

Then his eye was caught by a dark hooded figure who appeared out of nowhere, walking towards him from a far corner of the throne room. Walking right past his guards, the figure emanated a menace that had Kylo tensing when it flipped back its hood, but then his brows drew together in confusion when he saw that it was Rey. His heart leapt in surprise before he noticed no one else was reacting to her presence, realizing that only he could see her. 

He’d anticipated a Force bond would eventually happen at such an awkward time, when he was besieged by people. He almost smiled, but caught himself just in time. As she advanced, he noticed how different she looked: first, her lips were painted a deep red - a blood red; her cheeks were hollow, bones prominent. She wore a long, dark grey tunic opened at the front to reveal all leather leg-wraps and a silk-trimmed bodice. Her hazel eyes were oddly dark. 

Rey slowed to a halt at the bottom of the dais. His breath caught at the sight of her. She was fierce, and filled with a power that radiated from her like dark ember.

Blithely unaware of the shadowy creature beside him, Pryde concluded his presentation, looking at Kylo.

“And sooo, Supreme Leader, this ‘man’ has come to you, hoping to be recognised for his deeds,” the general finished, his tone leaving no doubt what his opinion was. The word “treason” hung in the air, unsaid. The alien Colonel had picked a side in the Galactic Civil War, defeated the system's own rebels, and negotiated a peace treaty with the Empire, sparing millions. Hux and Pryde and the others didn’t want him joining their ranks, however. He was “not like them.”

Kylo tried to think of a way to promote - deservingly - Col Rtfguyhl to General without causing a bloody battle in his throne room... and quickly, so he could get rid of them and on to more important matters.

He looked back at his beautiful Rey and she smiled at him - a cold, thin smile. Then she said something he hadn’t thought possible:

_“You have shown me something of Power I did not understand. Of Passion. I will join you now.”_

Taken aback, he almost stood up. He almost grinned. _She would stand with him! They could rule together!_ Just as he was about to proudly announce this momentous news to his staff, though, she reached up to her chest, and pulled on the leather to bare a breast.

 _‘I’m on a ship to you now, my love, but I do not want to wait. Let us join now,”_ she crooned.

Blood drained from his face and rushed to his loins. He was suddenly struck dumb. Images of them together flooded his mind and the blood rushed back to his head. He all but choked behind his mask, thankful for the cover it provided him, though maybe Hux would mistake his crimson expression for rage. Still, his body betrayed him, stiffening with shock.

Of course, no one else had witnessed the metaphysical interaction between them, even if his control over his reactions was slipping. 

“You’re right, Supreme Leader, we should never have brought this, this… _creature_ before you. We will return him to his little planet, where he can serve our designated ambassador as it should be. Serve, or be _executed_ ,” Pryde sneered all-too-eagerly.

Duty and desire warred within him. Where he had always desired to fulfill his duty, cutting his Master in two had changed all that when he had become the Master himself. His duty was to the Order. An Ordered Galaxy would be a peaceful one. This Alien man before him had chosen to accept his control - if the Order brought peace. Humiliating him would feed resentment and Chaos. Order had to be cultivated, not just imposed.

While he realized this, Rey had moved up to him. She knelt before him. Now duty was at odds with desire. 

_“What do you care for peace, my love? Peace has no passion, no strength, no power,”_ she purred as she put her hand on his knee and quickly slid it up his thigh; his whole body tensed. She reached the juncture of his thighs and firmly stroked him over his now too-tight breeches. He suddenly stood up, draping himself with his cloak to cover an inappropriate reaction to a protocolar audience.

“Promote this man to General, effective immediately!” he croaked.

“ _What_? But, Supreme Leader- ” Hux objected.

“Now, get out of here, all of you! _Now_ !” he yelled.

The procession left, shocked and angry faces all around. He'd done the right thing, if messily. While they took their time exiting the room, he took off his smothering helmet. His sweet, _sweet_ Rey encircled him in her arms and he felt that she was unusually warm.

He looked at her curiously. This is what he’d asked of her, but was this Darker Rey what he wanted? Before he could say a word she reached up to his face and pulled him down, kissing him fiercely. His knees gave out and he half-sat, half-fell back down into his throne.

Kissing. _Kissing his Beautiful Rey._

Her mouth opened to him and her tongue darted out to find his, tasting like wild honey. Small hands moved to the fasteners on his tunic, pulling them apart to get to his skin. He reached for her and found that small, round breast she has inexplicably bared before an audience. She left his mouth and quickly leaned in to kiss his chest, then knelt herself between his knees and hungrily sucked at his breast, drawing a surprised moan from him. When her hands moved down to his breeches he stopped her, surprised. 

“Not here,” he whispered hoarsely. “Someone could walk in.”

Rey’s head came up, hitting his chin hard enough his teeth clicked together and he bit his tongue. He tasted blood. 

“And do what? Stop the Supreme Leader?” she purred the words. “Forbid Kylo Ren from taking his pleasure?”

“Taking his pleasure,” he echoed unsteadily. The words resonated in his head. Yes. He had earned pleasure. This was _his_ throne room. He was sitting on _his_ throne. The luscious woman between his knees was fumbling at his waist, trying to free him. Shoving aside any further thoughts of propriety, he reached down to help her. 

Rey moved back a little and tugged at strings attached on the side of her tunic. Her cache-sexe came away. Before long, she was wearing nothing but dark leather wraps around her legs and arms, her breasts now bare and her stomach protected by a silken girdle. Looking down, he saw that even her pubis was gloriously exposed. She’d shaved it. 

His sight dimmed, became red-tinged. With shaky hands, he pushed his breeches out from under him, his cock springing out as if freed from a trap. Reaching under her arms, he hoped to raise her to sit on his lap. He had been dreaming of this for weeks, of them coming together this way. Well not this way. Not in this sudden, precipitated way, but now there was no stopping it. Even if it was only through the Force-bond, he would take her now, however he could. The urge to merge into her body was irresistible. 

Rey wiggled out of his grasp, denying him for the moment. She looked at him and grinned teasingly. A toothy grin.

“What…” he questioned in bewilderment, empty hands grasping for her naked flesh.

She swooped down onto him, giving his throbbing cockhead a bare brush of a kiss, then a lick, then taking it into her mouth. His senses reeled as she held him deep in her mouth, giving him time to adjust to the rush of sensations. Then she started to move on him. Her left hand grabbed the base of his engorged cock to caress and position him, while her right hand had reached down between her own legs. He gasped and shuddered as he watched captivated, his breath loud in the echoing emptiness of the cold, black-tiled room around them. Suddenly, he imagined what they would look like to anyone who dared walk in now: The Supreme Leader on his throne, groaning while his cock was being sucked on by a …

He felt a flash of searing pain in his head. Something was wrong. This lust-filled woman was not like his wonderful, strong-willed Rey, the Jedi he would kill for; _had_ killed for. How could this be the woman he had offered the Galaxy to. The woman he ...? 

He tried to push her away.

She bit him and he jerked upright; the sharp pain wrested a surprised yelp from him. 

She pushed herself up and stood before him, her cunt level with his face. Did she _snarl_ at him?

“Are you trying to stop me, Kylo Ren?” she snarled at him. He opened his mouth to protest.

With a sharp motion of her hand, she shut it, an invisible grip closing around his jaw. She reached for the hem of his pants, pulling him off his throne and onto the cold, hard floor as though he were a rag doll. She looked down at him coldly as he was paralysed by her Force.

Rey walked over him, over his face, flashing him a bit of blood-drenched cunt. Her thighs had become covered in blood, her right hand was drenched with it.

“Foolish _boy_ ,” she said scornfully. Her eyes turned to consider the throne, then she sat on it. “There can only be one to sit here: me. Now, you can die, or you can call me Master.” 

She pointed her finger and reached down to touch his chest. Her bloody touch became a burning torch. She began moving it across his chest, scarring him.

He cried out.

**

Rey was in the mess hall, laughing at something Finn had said when the cry came tearing through the bond. Her hands flew up and she grasped her head, her stomach twisting until she almost threw up.

“Ben!” she yelped, springing to her feet. 

Trays flew to the floor. Her friends stood with her, alarmed, reaching for weapons, looking around for the threat. When none showed up, they guessed at the source and looked back at her. 

“What’s happening? Is it Ren, is he hurting you?" demanded Finn urgently.

"No, he’s the one being hurt!" Rey replied, eyes wide.

"What? Is this some trick of his?" asked Poe disbelievingly.

Leia bursting through the mess hall doors and heading straight to them told them all otherwise. When she reached Rey, it was all the women could do to remain standing.

"What is happening? What is happening to him?" Leia asked.

"It’s like something has a hold of him and is...is _torturing_ him!" Rey gasped out.

"Torturing him!?" the older woman’s voice strained with a rare show of fear.

"I don’t understand, there was a feeling of... _of joy_ coming from him just a few minutes ago." 

_There was another feeling as well, like...pleasure, but it was... tainted,_ Rey thought. 

"Leia, I have to go to him! Something has a hold of him, I have to get him!" Rey pleaded. But how?

A faint whisper spoke out of nowhere: _*It is the voice of his Master, breaking him.*_

 _*Who is this?*_ Rey asked, feeling for the speaker through the Force, but finding no one.

 _*Who are you?*_ Leia seconded her student’s demand as the women looked at each other, bewildered.

 _*Anakin,*_ the answer came as if from very far away. It was tinged with sadness and dread.

Leia’s knees collapsed and Rey barely kept her from hitting the ground hard.


	5. Another Master

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On Leia's orders, our heroes race to get to Kylo Ren before he is destroyed.

“How many chances are you going to give this guy?” Poe Dameron exploded.

_ How many indeed? _ Rey wondered to herself. Apart from the urgency she now felt, she could not explain the change in her relationship with the man who still called himself Kylo Ren.

Were they lovers now? Yes, in an ethereal way. “Mystical Lovers,” the expression formed in her mind. Kylo Ren had understood the breathtaking depth of his loneliness and that his loneliness was now a choice. 

What he offered her now was very different: not to rule, but to serve. Her cheeks flushed, thinking of his offer to serve her. He would have to serve with her, though, for  _ she _ served peace in the galaxy.

“I’ve felt him change over the past weeks,” she finally answered. "I think he’s been found out.”

She turned to Leia, who was now sitting on a chair someone had brought her. Her present Jedi-mentor’s eyes were closed, her expression inscrutable. 

Who is this ‘Anakin’? She wondered, reaching out with her mind once again, feeling for that otherworldly presence. She was alone in her head again, though, and her eyes turned to watch as the woman beside her conversed with her unseen interlocutor.

Leia struggled to focus, unused to this cerebral method of communication, sometimes silent, sometimes speaking aloud.

_ *Father?* _ Leia asked, completely taken aback. "How? What?” 

_ *I don’t have much strength, Leia,* _ he whispered - emotions permeating through the link.

“Snoke is dead, Father. Ben himself killed him,” She still didn’t know whether she was proud - or terrified - of her son.

_ *There is another. He is - was - the Master of us all, back then…* _

“Who?”

_ *Tor Valum* _

“Tor Valum” Leia repeated, bewildered.

_ *I will - I will break the hold the Master has on your son. On my grandson. Be ready to get him out of there. Then take him to Mustafar.* _

The link faded.

Leia looked at them all. 

“Go get my son.”

Comms told them The First Order’s admiral ship was in the Woeurlj system. They set off, Finn, Poe, Chewbacca and Rey, in Han Solo’s  _ Millennium Falcon _ to save his murderous son’s ass. The silence in the cockpit was heavy. 

**

The link snapped and he could breathe again. It was as if some hand had reached into his brain, found a wire, and ripped it out, leaving a word in its place:  _ Mustafar _ . Kylo Ren lay on his back, his pants around his knees, junk hanging out. 

She was gone. The succubus had vanished. He reached for his chest and found that the gaping wounds he’d expected were not there. After a minute, he reached for his breeches and pulled them up, fastening them shakily. He sat up, then pushed himself to one knee before standing on wobbly legs as he fixed his shirt.

Turning to the Dark Side, Rey had betrayed him. He had been weak, and she had betrayed him. Now, she was on her way here.

_ Something severed the link between us. Or someone. They saved me, _ he thought unsure what it meant, but all his focus quickly turned to the one word that burned in his mind like a brand. 

_ Mustafar _ . 

When he could walk again, he limped towards the exit. He straightened and donned his helmet before passing the door and when he saw Captain Phasma he beckoned to her.

"I will be leaving the ship for a few days,” he informed her, keeping the terror and pain out of his voice as well as the modulator managed. “There are matters of the Force I have to research. Keep an eye on things and report to me any ... traitorous activity."

"Where will I contact you, Sir?" she inquired, snapping to attention, her chrome-plated armor gleaming in the artificial lights overhead.

"I will be at my Grandfather's fortress."

"Very well Sir."

"Another thing,” he said over his shoulder as he strode past her. “General Rtfguyhl is an asset to the First Order. I want you to personally ensure his safety."

"Sir...yes Sir. Oh Sir," she called after him before he was too far down the corridor. "You have a drop of blood on your collar."

He washed himself quickly, changed his clothes and gathered a few things before leaving for his trip. Pausing briefly, he looked at the book of poetry on his bed, feeling a pang of pain in his breast, like a stab. Turning away, he left it there. 

He made it to his TIE-fighter  _ The Silencer _ , unhindered by saluting guards. He'd been lucky the Ren had not rushed into the throne room and found him lying on the floor, broken. He'd clenched his teeth to stifle his screams, knowing he had been seduced.

_ Just as I seduced her to the Dark Side. _

He put the ship into hyperspace and watched stars rush past him as a familiar hum filled the cockpit. He was fleeing a confrontation he could not win: she was stronger than him. He knew that now. How much stronger, though? He had just barely resisted calling her Master. 

Why had he resisted? Didn't he want her this way?

While she was torturing him, she had whispered about all the things they would do together: enslave all the systems, crush any resistance. Were those not his goals as well? They’d burn world after world, she’d promised. 

That was where he drew the line, however. The First Order was necessary to keep the peace in the galaxy, he was sure of it. As Supreme Leader, he wielded Power over it all. He was ...

_ I am responsible for the people in those systems, _ he realized.

**

Finn, Chewbacca and Rey sat in uncomfortable silence onboard the Falcon when they burst out of hyperspace on the dark side of an asteroid in the Woeurlj system. It was large enough to land on and they could see  _ the Steadfast _ in their viewport. A few other ships complemented the now much smaller First Order fleet. 

Poe joined them in the Lounge. They needed a plan.

"I can try to contact him again. The pain has stopped, so there's that, at least," Rey announced.

"Is he captured?" asked Finn. "Do we have to go in there to get him out? Are we  _ insane _ ?"

"RRaaeeww," growled the Wookie. <This is insane>.

After a silence, Poe leaned forward. 

"Even if we break ‘Supreme Leader Kylo Ren’  _ out of his own jail _ , what the Hell do we do with him? Demand a ransom? Bring him home?" he asked, reciting Ren’s title mockingly.

"I say we put him out of his misery," Finn declared. "That would be a mercy."

He looked at Rey, seeing her face was stricken. 

"You're in love with him!" he blurted in disbelief. His face flushed in anger. "You have us here risking our lives for your ...  _ Sith boyfriend! _

"What? No, no, I - I have compassion for him. That's all," she protested quickly. 

_ I am bound to him _ , she realized, shaken.

"Leia sent us to get him," Poe interjected, though he shot her a dark look. "He can stand trial and be judged." 

_...and then be executed _ , he finished silently, the thought plainly written across his face. 

"Wrraaaaa weraaa," groaned the Wookie, thinking of the boy he'd helped raise, torn by the memory of the man that boy had grown into -- the man who had killed his friend. <Leia told us to take him to Mustafar>.

There was a pause at that. Mustafar, Darth Vader's home fortress. Why in hell go there, what would they find? But if Leia's father, Skywalker, had reached out to her, it was hard to refuse. 

Rey stretched her mind out to Ben again, starting in surprise as she realized he had escaped  _ The Steadfast _ , Straining desperately, she caught the thought, "Mustafar" before he slammed the connection shut between them. Breathing heavily from the effort, she turned to tell her friends. 

"We can..." she caught herself before saying "join," "We can find him there. Let's go. We can figure things out when we arrive. Whatever has him in thrall is not his friend. We can help him defeat it."

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend," quoted Poe, philosophically . Silence followed.

***

In another part of the galaxy, two forces briefly struggled.

*You obeyed me once. I can destroy your ghost if you interfere again. Your grandson chose this path.*

*Ben Solo did not choose this. I know now the Sith twisted his mind from the very beginning. I saved my son, and I will save my grandson.*

*He is weak. As Leader of the First Order he is just useful enough to do my bidding. And you are weak as well.*

*I am weak, but I am not alone. Not anymore.* 

The link broke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to tie things together with some plot. Am I doing this right ? It sure feels exciting to me.
> 
> Updated notes: The character Tor Vallum is from the unused script "Dual of the Fates" by Collin Trevorrow. No way I was bringing Palpatine back. I needed a villain, and as this is my _first_ "epic" fic, I wasn't ready to invent one yet.


	6. Mustafar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mustafar

General Hux marched down the corridors of  _ the Steadfast _ on his way to the meeting room, still fuming. The "Supreme Leader" was away on one of his trips, again. The man had a temper and was unpredictable. Hux and Pryde had made efforts to contain him since the disaster he’d made of the confrontation on Crait and the Madness, and for a while it looked like the worst had passed. Over the past month or so, however, he'd become... distracted. Just today, he had promoted an alien - an  _ Alien _ \- to General, then disappeared before the official ceremony. Even his guest was dumbfounded by the unorthodox treatment. 

What was he up to now? Had he found some trace of the scavenger again? The way that creature bested him again and again and the way he pursued her relentlessly like a man obsessed was embarrassing. He was like a man... Hux stopped in his tracks. 

Like a man in love. By the  _ Maker _ !  _ Was that what all this was about? _

Hux didn't know whether to be horrified or amused. He only knew one thing about the situation: it was a threat to the Order. More importantly, it was a weakness he could exploit. He decided to take a detour by the "Leader's" rooms. The doors were locked. He would have to ask Ren’s personal guard - he shuddered at the thought - or maybe Captain Phasma would let him in. He thought again of the Knights of Ren; their Master hadn't taken them with him on this trip. He would see them after the meeting.

Phasma saw Hux tugging at the handle of her Leader's door. She noted that down in the duty log as an incident and carried on. 

***

When Kylo woke up, he had made it to the planet on which his grandfather's domain was built: the mythical Fortress Vader. The short rest had been needed, but now he ached in every part of his body. As he approached the fortress, he saw what was left of the huge tower over the Lava Cascade. Even ruined, it was impressive. 

Grandfather tried to use a portal somewhere inside to reach his wife, he remembered, but it had failed... and he’d destroyed it. 

_ * _ **I** _ failed. A dark portal could never reunite me with my beloved Padme. I was foolish to think otherwise. _ * A faint voice in his head murmured. 

Startled, it took Kylo much effort to concentrate on landing the TIE-fighter. 

_ Was that...? _

_ *Grandfather?* _ He hadn't heard from him in ages. The voice seemed different, somewhat deeper than he remembered. 

_ *Yes, Ben Solo. It is I, Anakin,* _ said the new voice. 

_ *Ben Solo? You never called me by that name before. _ *

_ *I’ve never been able to reach you before*. _

_ Was this a trick? _

_ *I’m not the one tricking you, Ben; there’s another Master: Tor Valum. Search my chambers: you will find a holocron with a message for me.* _ And then the voice was gone. 

_ Another Master, _ Kylo thought, disheartened. Always another. 

Perhaps it was this new Master that had ripped Rey from the Light and turned her against him. His fist clenched reflexively: for that alone he would destroy this usurper. He did not dwell on the contradiction in his heart: that he wanted Rey’s Light  _ and _ to remain in the Darkness himself.

_ Tor Valum _ . The name was vaguely familiar. He would first find the Holocron, then he would have to go back to  _ The Steadfast  _ to do further research. 

_ He called himself Anakin, not Darth Vader _ , he realized belatedly with a frown. 

When he came across the Alazmec of Winsit guarding the Corvex Fen, Kylo Ren was back to feeling like himself again. He made short work of them, relishing the flex of muscle as his saber rent limbs and sent heads flying. Cutting down foes using combat forms and the Force was something he knew and understood. He danced through their formation, his mind in synchronicity with his body, his crazy Light-saber spitting blood and plasma; in this moment, he was doing the one thing he was certain he did better than anyone else: killing his enemies.He walked into the fortress covered in ash and blood. 

Even with his Force-sensitivity, it took him the better part of an hour to find the secret cache where the artifact was hidden. When he walked out of the Fortress, he saw the Falcon appear in the sky. He was startled by the sudden pain in his heart. What are they doing here? 

For a second, he toyed with the idea of confronting whoever was piloting the decrepit ship. Chewbacca?  _ Uncle Chewie _ . A memory of being tossed dizzyingly into the air and being caught in a shaggy embrace tugged at his heart. 

He was recalling more and more lately -- from before. Clearer, brighter memories of his early youth.

Then he sensed  _ her _ aboard, with them. _ She's tricked them too _ , he thought, and that pained him just as much. Against all of them at once, he might win, but he judged he would be badly injured in the encounter. He also knew it would cost more than he was prepared to pay: he would have to kill  _ her _ to survive. 

Refusing to either kill or face her, he fled to his ship and took off. 

No matter how much he tried to harden himself, even after defeating Snoke, he was always pulled back to the Light. Rey called to the Light inside him and he had thought to pull her to him; that they would embrace in the Darkness. He thought the Passion he felt for Rey would give him strength, but now that she had come for him he realized she would ultimately destroy him - and much more than just him. How much destruction would she wreak upon the galaxy? How much Darkness would this new Master want? 

He looked at the stars that streaked past him as he made his way back to his home within the Fleet. He loved flying like this, unbound and in control. He loved seeing all the suns of all the worlds in all the systems spread before him in an immeasurable panorama of wonder.

But they didn't love him. They didn't want him. Rey had wanted him, once. The Jedi Rey had ... cared for him? He had not deserved that much from her, and now his Passion had destroyed her Light. Now, he was a man lost in the Dark without a beacon to guide his course. 

Except ... he did have a purpose: find this Tor Valum and destroy him. To free himself. 

**

They had barely landed when Rey realized he had left, escaping beyond her reach once more. She looked at her friends in confusion. 

"I, I don't know what he's doing," she finally admitted. "He came here for a purpose, but now he's gone again."

"A wild goose chase," Finn grumbled. "Great. I thought he was injured?" 

"He was in pain," she answered. "He was tortured." 

"He was Force-tortured," Poe added. He hadn't forgotten  _ that _ experience … or who had done it to him. 

"But  _ he's _ the Supreme Leader now, who could be strong enough to torture him?" asked Finn.

They looked at each other in sudden trepidation:  _ who indeed? _

"Let's get back. We need answers," Poe ordered as he turned and headed back to the cockpit.

"Wait,” Rey stopped him. “There could be answers here. We can explore this place and maybe find information that can help us." 

* 

As they made their way through the Grove of Corvax Fen in the shadow of that grim tower, they came across a dozen dead bodies: the cultists who’d guarded it. 

"I see your  _ Sith Boyfriend _ is just as nice as he ever was," Finn said snidely.

"Don't call him that," she protested. "It's complicated." 

Finn was just about to argue when they heard a groan echo through the murk. 

One of the cultists was still alive! They ran over to where the sound came from; a man was laying in the ash of once-legendary trees. His arm had been cut off, but the Lightsaber had only partially cauterized the wound - he was bleeding to death. 

"What do we do? Do we bring him back with us?" asked Finn, unsure. 

Chewie knelt by the man, massive arms ready to pick the victim up, but the cultist grunted in denial. 

"Nooo,” he gasped. “Must... guard... the Grove !" 

He picked up his sword and tried to swing it at them feebly. Chewie moved back with an uncertain yowl. 

"You can't stay here, you'll die!" Rey warned the wounded man. 

"Guard.. the ...Corvax... Fen," the dying man insisted. He dropped the sword, useless in his hand, his lifeforce fading fast.

"When he passes out, we can pick him up and bring him to the Falcon; patch him up at least," suggested Poe quietly, half-turned away so the cultist wouldn’t catch his words and resist. 

"He looks deathly pale. I don't know that there's time," said Rey; she knelt beside him and put her hand on the Guard's chest.

Something inside her opened up and she reached inside with her feelings, seeking the Force. With its help, she felt the wound at his arm, the half-burned flesh. The Force was abuzz around it, flowing wildly. Rey could feel the cold growing through the man’s prostrate body as his life-blood rapidly drained away. Then she felt a glow of Force bloom inside her, then travel from her own heart, through her body, and to her hand. She let it flow. If she could just connect...

There was an audible gasp and then stunned silence. Rey wavered where she knelt then fainted, briefly. 

"What happened?" she asked dazedly when she came to. 

_ “Rey _ ! You, you healed that Guard -”

“- You healed him -”

“- With the Force!”

Her three companions exclaimed excitedly, talking over each other. 

"Hraaaaa, hwwwreee Hrauuaaa! " said the Wookie <You saved his life!>. 

She felt weak; Chewie picked her up and they made their way back to their ship, leaving the cultist on the ground, weak... but alive. Someone would come for him. She sensed one of his own kind coming towards them.

"Chewie, do you want to stay in here with Rey while we explore the Fortress?" asked Finn once they reached  _ the Falcon _ . "She's not going anywhere in that state."

"I'd rather he came along. You stay here, Finn, we'll check the place out," Poe decided. 

As they walked down the ramp, Poe and Chewie saw Cultists had gathered there, half a dozen, waiting. One raised a hand in a peace gesture, and the Resistance Captain went to meet him. 

"You have a woman with you. She saved one of the Guards?" asked the leader in halting Imperial. 

"Yeah what if she did?" The pilot let his hand thumb the safety off his blaster in case this got ugly.

There was an excited murmur among them; some made religious signs. 

"This is rare, but not unheard of. Why did you come here?" the cultists’ speaker asked. 

"We are here trying to figure out what Kylo Ren came for," Poe wasn't about to tell him they had come to "rescue" Kylo Ren, not after he'd mowed through their ranks. 

"Ah. Your purpose is to defeat him, yes?" the cultist prodded.

_ Definitely _ .

"Definitely,” Poe assured him. “But there's an even greater enemy, looks like. We have to defeat that one too." 

The Leader seemed to consider them, then made him an offer. 

"You will need things we gathered years ago, when we broke into the Fortress to clear it out. Wait here."

He turned and spoke with one of the others, who took off at a quick run. The dispatched guardian came back some time later, carrying a heavy satchel and followed by a few more curious people. The leader handed them over to Poe. 

"These are texts and a few relics. Take them, and never come back here." His tone deepened in menace. "We are done with outsiders."

The Cultists turned and went back to their village. Poe and Chewie went up the ramp and closed it. In the lounge, Finn had brewed a protein-rich soup for Rey, but she was sleeping now. The healing had cost her. 

On the table, Poe opened the satchel: there were books alright, written in a cryptic, unknown language. A couple strange objects accompanied the books - one was an ancient dagger in a tattered leather wrap that looked disquietingly like it was human skin. 

They lifted off and made their way back to the Resistance base, failing to bring the general’s son back, as ordered, but far from empty-handed. 


	7. A Nightmare and a Message

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren and Rey of Jakku do their homework. Kylo has nightmares.

When he made it back to  _ the Steadfast _ , the Knights of Ren were waiting for him. There was an uncomfortable silence before he took a breath and addressed them. 

"Is there anything you wish to report, Ap'lek Ren?" 

There was a short pause before his second-in-command answered.

"There is a perceptible disturbance in the Force, Master Ren...and we are eager for a fight."

_ A disturbance indeed,  _ Kylo Ren thought _ , standing right in front of you.  _ "Did you find the Resistance, then?"

"The Millenium Falcon was spotted on Mustafar, right after your... visit, Master," Ap’lek reported. 

Kylo sensed suspicion is his disciple's voice.  _ Things are very dangerous now _ , he thought. He felt rage rise in him; he welcomed it.

" _ What _ ? Then what are you doing here?” he roared. “Why aren't you there now, crushing them?"

"We would never think to leave without you, ‘ _ Master _ ,’" the Knight dared to reproach him. 

_ This is definitely not going well, _ he thought to himself. He had neglected them, and they were hungry - a cur will turn on its master if starved. 

"I have just now come back from Mustafar with a relic - a relic from _my_ _Grandfather_ Darth Vader," he reminded them pointedly, though that was a weak move and he knew it. "I will be studying this relic. Its secrets will not remain hidden long." 

“What do you need us to do, then?" All the Knights focused their attention on him in earnest. They were not exactly fretful, but certainly impatient to do something. Some...  _ things _ . 

"Is the ship still there?" he asked, thankful his mask hid his dread.  _ Is  _ she _ still there _ ? 

"No, they departed  _ Lord Vader's _ Fortress." The tone held a nuance of sarcasm, reminding him the Knights revered Darth Vader,  _ not him, _ personally. 

"Well then, go there and find out what they were after!" he barked at them. That would keep them busy, and out of his hair. They would slaughter and torture the rest of the Alazmec of Winsit, but there was no helping it. Maybe one of the Ren would be killed during the confrontation. At the very least, he would learn what the Crew of the  _ Millennium Falcon _ had learned. If Rey was with them, she would not pursue him here again. 

It did not make sense. _ What is she doing _ ?

Back in his quarters, he examined the holocron. If he could figure out how to unlock it he would gather precious information about this Tor Valum. He would need his Sith texts, though. Sitting at his desk, he set about his studies. 

Just as he was settled down there was a signal at his door: it was Captain Phasma, reporting to him about Hux's "indiscretion". With concern, Kylo inquired after the new General he had precipitously promoted. She informed him that he had been returned to his home system safely. The Senior staff still obeyed him, at least. 

_ Of course, Hux would be suspicious of my actions and motives by now _ . 

He glanced at his bed, looking for the book of Sufi poetry and saw it was still there. Was it exactly where he had left it? Or had it been moved? 

How long could he continue being Supreme Leader  _ and _ Jedi Killer  _ and _ , he realized, Sith killer all at the same time? If he killed this new Master, he would be stronger than Rey. He could take her as an apprentice then, and they would…

They would... what?  _ What did he want _ ?

After a few hours of pouring over books, and trying a few methods of exerting the Force to unlock the artifact, he had made only a little progress. This type of technical work was not habitual for him, but he had passed the first two locks; more remained.

***

Back on the Resistance base, the team reunited with their friends: Rose Tico, the three droids, and the others. They met with Leia, who looked at them expectantly. 

"Did you…?" she began, letting the question hang in the air. 

"We got there just as he left, it seems," Rey said. "He'd managed to escape, we followed him to Mustafar."

"He was in good enough health to kill a dozen people in his path, but we didn't meet him," added Finn darkly.

"He was looking for something and he must have found it, but we don't know what, he took off again and we lost him." added Poe. "We found some things though."

"Rooo Reeeyy Hiiirii hrii" <Rey healed a dying man!> exclaimed Chewbacca, reminding them of the miraculous event they’d witnessed.They all looked at Rey. 

"Oh yeah. I did that, didn't I?" she remembered a little dimly. The memory was hazy. It had taken a lot out of her to do it, and she was uncertain as to  _ how _ she'd done it in the first place. 

The satchel the Alazmec had given them was brought in and its content emptied onto the command table. Leia peered at the books, a look of doubt then of mounting horror rising on her face.

"These are Sith texts!" she gasped.

Gingerly, she picked one up, curiosity chasing revulsion on her features. She opened it, leafing through the worn pages. The writing was cryptic; there were illustrations, but she could not, at first glance, make anything of them. There were a couple other artifacts as well, but they were just as mysterious, offering more questions than they answered. 

And then there was that dagger. Rose picked it up and examined it: a long, tapered blade with a red-and-gold metal-forged handle. The metal of the blade seemed...soft, for a weapon. Was it ceremonial?

"I am loath to say this, but the information contained in these books would be useful to us," Leia stated slowly, reluctantly. "We are not fighting just Stormtroopers. There is someone we have to look for: a Tor Valum. He is Kylo Ren's new Master, now." 

She would  _ not _ say Ben's Master. 

"Know thine enemy," quoted Poe. They looked at him, surprised. "I've been reading, ok?"

"But how do we understand these? They're in Sith!" Rey exploded in frustration. 

There was a silence. Then a series of excited beeps and clicks as R2 spoke: <C3P0 can translate it!>

"What are you talking about? I can't translate these!" C-3P0 backed up precipitously, almost falling over BB-8 behind him, who blipped up at him persuasively. 

\- Beep Blop!

\- Beep bip zzzzip!

"No I can't, I can't!"

"Zappp blart blart!" 

The team looked on bemusedly at what appeared to be a heated argument between Droids. 

"Yes I  _ can _ translate the text, but I  _ can't _ !" the golden protocol droid insisted with a jerk of his head, distressed. 

"Three-Pio, what is the meaning of this? Can you translate the texts or not?" Leia interrupted.

"I can, but I am forbidden from doing it!" he yelped, more flustered than they’d ever seen him.

"Forbidden? By who?" Leia asked, irritation creeping into her voice.

"Forbidden by law!” he informed her stuffily. “I am programmed not to translate any Sith writings!"

" _Damn_!" the general cursed.

***

That night, Kylo Ren's sleep was fitful. He woke several times with a start, thinking he heard someone in his room - thinking  _ she _ was in his room, visiting him to torment him. Perhaps to submit him or seduce him. There didn't seem to be any difference, now. He felt her caress him and then bite him, again and again, hearing her whisper horrible destruction in his ear, inviting him to join her. He had visions of a red, toothy smile and long red, claw-like nails that would rake and rend his flesh. 

Finally, he just got up. In the mirror a gaunt, disfigured monster with blood-shot eyes stared back at him. 

He put his mask on. 

Ruling the Galaxy with an iron fist would be a welcome distraction to the stabbing pain he felt in his heart.

***

Rey lay on her own cot, wondering at the sudden silence between her and Ben. She felt him, but he was out of her reach, as if behind a barrier that kept her out. It was like a dark, cold bubble of ice. 

Had he finally succeeded in blocking himself off from her? But why? Their last interaction, before the painful one, had been...well, absolute bliss, to say the least. She blushed as she thought of it - as she thought of it  _ again _ . Then she thought of the horrible pain that had bled through their last bond. It had been preceded by … pleasure? But it had been a  _ tainted _ pleasure.

_ Someone _ had found their bond, and this intruder was exploiting their relationship, subverting it to weaken Ben, Rey realized.  _ Someone is hurting him, manipulating him into rejecting me. _ She was suddenly filled with an absolute  _ rage _ .

She got up. That someone was Tor Valum, it must be. She had his name.

She made a mental list of the tools she had at her disposition. She had the Sith texts, or rather, illustrations in the books. She had Jedi texts, with their own sketches and illustrations. There were also the artifacts. The two religions mirrored each other. Rey resolved to compare them and see what she could deduce from what they had in common. 

When she got to the makeshift study, she saw Leia and Rose discussing something together. They looked up when she came through the doorway. 

"Couldn't sleep either, eh? Listen, Rose may have a plan about those texts," Leia looked grim. 

"Really?” Rey asked, hopeful. “Let's hear it. I have one too." 

"I think I can bypass C3P0's programming,” Rose said. “But ..." 

"But?" Rey prodded her anxiously.

"There's a risk,” the technician warned. “An important risk."

"What?" Rey asked, brows pulling together slightly.

"I'd have to wipe out his memory. A kind of re-set, if you will," Rose explained, shame-faced. 

“ _ Maker _ ! " Rey exclaimed. "That's horrible. Are you sure this is the only way?"

"It is  _ a _ way. What's yours?" Rose pressed, eager for better news than what she’d offered.

"Yes, listen: we have sacred texts of both the Jedi and the Sith,” Rey told them animatedly, excited. “What do they have in common?" 

The two other women looked at her, their tired expressions blank.

"They're both from religions inspired by the Force," Rey prompted, and understanding started to dawn upon their faces:

"They have common histories!" answered Leia.

"Schematics of common artifacts!" exclaimed Rose. She looked relieved; they would try this research first. 

"There's another thing," Rey's demeanor became dark and menacing. "This Tor Valum managed to ... to hijack the link between Ben and me, to turn him away from me." 

"He will suffer for that," she vowed, voice shaking with anger.

The women looked at her with surprise and concern. There was a violence in Rey they didn't know existed. 

"Why do you care? Hasn't he done enough already? Why do you keep trying to turn him?" Rose asked with bewilderment at Rey’s determination. She was still grieving her friends and comrades, so many lost to the First Order Kylo Ren now ruled. 

Leia looked at Rose and said nothing, her expression shuttered. 

Rey considered the two women. There  _ was _ something she could share with them. 

"The advanced warnings we've received over the past month, so we escaped attacks in time? They were from him. He's stopped pursuing the Jedi sympathizers and the Resistance," she revealed quietly.

"Why the change?" Rose asked disbelievingly. It was hard to imagine the Supreme Leader protecting them.

"Because Snoke is dead. He's healing. We were becoming so close! But this  _ Tor Valum,” _ she spat the words, “is trying to subjugate him again."

***

It took another day for Kylo Ren to crack open the holocron and read the message: in the event that Luke Skywalker should kill him, Palpatine was instructing Vader to bring the young Jedi to Tor Valum in the Remnicore system. The way there was encrypted in the Sith Wayfinder, concealed in an alcove in his observation room. 

Onboard the last Death Star. 

**

Meanwhile, Rey and Rose pieced together the existence of Sith Wayfinders, and were coming to their own conclusion: one was to be found on the defeated Emperor's second Death Star. It could lead them to this Tor Valum's lair. If they interpreted the information correctly, the dagger they had found was powerful enough to destroy him. 

They prepared themselves for the voyage.


	8. Fallen Death Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Tempest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adapted from that perfect scene in the movie. But here it's "Look Ma, no Han!"

The Scavenger from Jakku had a fair idea of where she would find the Sith Wayfinder she was after, but how to get  _ to _ it would be a challenge. Just getting to the wreck would be dangerous, but she had to risk it - she had to get there before Kylo broke under his new Master's pressure. 

She slipped away while the rest of the crew were distracted by that toxic leak in the  _ Falcon _ ; there was no time to fix it, and Poe would be gone too long with his X-wing for her to wait for him to get back with the parts they needed. She would go alone; none of them could climb and crawl around in a wreck like she could, anyway. They would just slow her down, or worse, fall and hurt themselves. 

She found a little skiff moored in a protected cove, tossed about by the roiling sea. She would need to use the Force to guide it through the tempest; she only hoped she could sustain the effort. Rey looked at the rolling hills of deep blue water; they reminded her of sand dunes... if sand dunes could move and crash on top of you and drown you. They could - in a way - but not at that terrifying speed. She pushed the skiff out, face set with determination. 

Its little engine was strong and soon Rey was free of the rocks and reefs that threatened to smash her like dried sticks. She closed her eyes to sense where she was going, the churning motion doing a number on her stomach. She felt the currents under her and the massive crests that sometimes rose as high as six Galactic standard meters above her, like a herd of huge beasts rampaging after she had disturbed their slumber. The water-banthas heaved her on their blue-grey backs and when she opened her eyes she was on top of the ocean. For a moment she felt a thrill of exhilaration, then the wave passed beneath her and she began to fall off the water-beast’s back, plunging terrifyingly fast into the trough before being picked up again. It took every bit of effort through her connection to the Force to ride the roiling beasts’ fury and keep from being thrown off her raft like a child's doll.

As she made her way across the straight, it did not seem like she was getting nearer, only that the wreckage was growing impossibly huge. It filled her vision as it spanned the entirety of the horizon. It was a terrible ruin; a reminder of the terrible power that had once built it, once wielded it as a weapon... before a small band of brothers and sisters had destroyed it. 

Inside, was a dark and twisted mess of quadranium and ferroconcrete. On the levels closer to the sea’s surface and nearer the open air, creatures had begun to colonize its nooks and crannies. As Rey climbed higher inside unnatural crevasses, she even saw birds’ nests. When she traveled along corridors, beady eyes shone in dark recesses eerily. Bits of plastoid armor were strewn about, sometimes still arranged in the shape of a fallen soldier, long since rotten to gunk. The humidity made every surface slimy and treacherous. 

The scavenger crossed a hangar bay where broken TIE-fighters were all piled up in a jumble.  _ This is a treasure trove, _ she thought, her scavenger instincts perking up and appraising the tech, calculating the amount of portions she could get in one day from a haul like this. She looked around warily - she was alone, it seemed. No one else had been crazy enough to brave those waters. After what seemed like hours of climbing and walking through a maze of rusted corridors, she reached the old Emperor's observation room. 

Spying the door to the alcove, she marched towards it, breathing heavily in anticipation. Then Rey pulled up short, eyes widening as her mind drifted ahead, sensing for hidden dangers. 

She felt  _ him _ there, just on the other side. Leia’s wayward son had reached the alcove before her. 

The door slid open and he walked out, his masked head bent down, looking at the thing he held in his hand. As she had, he suddenly stopped in his tracks and his head snapped up, startled at her appearance. 

_ How could I sneak up on him? He should have felt me near. _

Her heart gave a little bound and she moved forward, hopeful. 

At her overture, he stepped back and lit his saber. His posture was stiff, but his head turned this way and that, as if looking for an exit. 

_ He's scared of me _ , she realized. 

"You've come for me," he said in that robotic voice she loathed. His stance changed, shoulders slumping, as if resigning himself to making a difficult choice. Reaching beneath his trailing cloak, he pocketed the artifact.

There was a sudden breach in the mind-shield between them and she saw herself as he saw her: a terrifying vision of blood-red and void-black. A terrible guilt washed from him, and she thought she could read his emotions

_ He thinks he's turned me! And it's crushing him. _ She was stunned. 

At that moment, Ren attacked. Rey just barely jumped back to avoid his first strike and lit her own saber to shield herself. 

"Wait, stop!" she cried but he couldn't hear her, she realized. 

The last Jedi parried his next blow and looked for a way to escape the cramped quarters. Breathlessly, she risked a jump through a hole in the floor and found herself on a long ridge of ruins that jutted out into the roiling waves of the still-angry sea. She tried to reach through to him again, but the breach had been sealed shut, locking her away from his mind, once more. 

Out on the ridge, they fought with a terrifyingly familiar ferocity. The Jedi deflected the Jedi-killer’s blows as he pounded against her, sometimes to incapacitate, sometimes to maim, but other times to kill. Every blow seemed to strike with a different intent, as though he fought himself as much as the woman before him. She felt equal parts of rage and pain in him, mixed with fear and heartbreak. Rey started to cry. She reached to Leia, to Luke, to any Jedi she could think of, for she would need their help soon: she was already tired, and he was willing to fight to the death. 

Even if it meant  _ his _ death, she realized with tragic certainty. 

A huge wave swelled above them, then. She saw it and leaped away from the lashing water, using the Force of her fear to spring way up into the air and land much further down the ridge than any mere human could. Agilely, she turned around, waiting anxiously, a part of her wishing he would be washed away. 

He appeared through the spray, marching through the surge and towards her at a resolute, implacable pace. Rain and sea pounded down upon him, soaking him through. Briefly, he paused and reached up to remove his helmet and let it drop with a heavy metallic clang. When Rey finally saw his face, it seemed carved out of stone, his scar a dark vein through pale marble; his eyes were focused, but not quite on her - on something else. 

He didn’t really see her. 

*

The bitch before him had to be contained or killed. He would bring this degenerate mockery of Rey to Tor Valum or she would die. Or perhaps  _ he _ would die - and that would be the end of it. He could not live with her this way. The obscenity of transforming her was his to bear and now he didn't know how to turn her back. 

As he fought to overpower her, she was not really fighting back; she was toying with him, he was sure. She was yelling at him but he wouldn't listen to her. 

*

Half a galaxy away, sitting at a command console, Leia Organa felt their anguish - both of them. Her son's heartbreak and her pupil’s distress bled through the Force, sending frantic reverberations from one end of the galaxy to the other. She knew she was powerless alone and so she reached out to her brother, her father, anyone who would help them. 

_ Please _ , she pleaded. 

Luke’s Force Ghost was the first to answer:  _ *I will help.* _

And then, Anakin: * _ I will break through to him, again _ .*

**

Back on the fallen Death Star, Rey's wrists had gone numb and she could barely lift her arm from the weight of the blows she’d blocked. She had lasted much longer than she should have, frustration and fear having given her some Force, but her desperation to avoid hurting him leeched energy away from that source. It was almost spent.

_ I can't parry anymore _ , she realized,  _ I have to incapacitate him or he'll kill me.  _

* _ Just a little longer, _ * she heard Luke’s voice in her head, and she could lift her arm once more. 

Suddenly, she slipped on a scummy patch of metal and fell to her knee. Kylo saw the opportunity and raised his jagged blade for a final blow, letting the fates decide its outcome.

*

And then he heard a soft whisper. 

* _ Ben _ .* 

Time stopped. Something he hadn’t felt in far too many years reached for him from across the galaxy. Utter, unconditional love flowed into him. 

He stayed his hand, mid-swing. 

* _ But I destroyed her, Mom, I turned Rey to the Darkness. I’m a monster _ .* 

* _ You did not. _ * Anakin broke in. * _ It wasn't her. It was a trick. _ *

_ It wasn’t Rey who hurt you! _ Voices pleaded in his head - voices he knew. The words finally broke through the fog in his mind: that hadn’t been Rey in his Throne Room, not the compassionate, innocent - albeit often furious - Rey. He dropped his saber, red blade retracting as the heavy black hilt fell. 

There was a flash of understanding: it was this Tor Valum.  _ He _ had planted the bloodthirsty succubus in his mind.

He was so tired. So many masters trying to possess and control him - his whole life, it seemed. He fell to his knees and covered his face with his hands. Even laying in the snow, face torn open and blood soaking into his robes, he’d not felt this defeated. He was so exhausted, he didn’t know whether to continue to rage or cry. The struggle within him made his whole frame shake..

*

Rey felt the fight go out of him and quickly moved over to his side, letting their shoulders and hips touch. Cautiously, she opened her mind to him. 

“Ben,” she said gently. "It’s alright. I'm here with you." 

She didn’t know what to do. He was there, beside her, needing someone to hold him. At the same time, she felt how he needed to be separate, to belong to himself for once in his life. 

All she could do was be there with him, so she waited. She wanted to take him in her arms  _ and _ she wanted to give herself to him, to the gentle man she’d had glimpses of, all at the same time. She wanted him to trust her again. 

So, she sat with him and waited in silence. 

After a long moment, he reached for her and pulled her into his arms. He gathered her in, close to his heart and she tucked herself into the warm expanse of his chest, filling it up as much as she could. She lay her cheek against his crazed heart beat, turning to him and reaching around his waist as far as she could reach. Rey hugged as much of him as she could. 

Another moment passed, and then she finally felt him relax around her. Taking a deep breath, Rey turned her face up towards his, peering at his lopsided face - the delicate chin, his crooked mouth, and prominent nose. The scar she had put there was almost gone, now. When he opened his dark almond eyes to meet her waiting gaze, he looked at her with grateful recognition for a moment, then closed his eyes again, leaning forward. He kissed her. 

_ Kissing. Kissing her Beautiful Monster. Ben. _

It was as though a blinding light enveloped them both in a warm glow. The last of his defenses came crashing down and, his mind now open to hers, Rey felt just how deeply he had grown to care for her. Her own shields crumbled in answer and she let her own feelings shine through. Her compassion for him had changed, as well. She didn’t know this feeling well, but it was as strong as his. 

Her heartbeat sped up. His lips parted slightly and his warm breath invited her to meet him in a deeper place. She let her tongue shyly sneak out to meet his. They touched and she was reminded of all the promises his body had made to her. Her hands came up and cupped his face tenderly, running her fingers through the tangled locks that cascaded around their kiss.

For Rey, Ben had a core of Light she would traverse any depth of Darkness to reach. There was something, some life in him she only knew she wanted for herself, even as he terrified her, even if she knew nothing of the joining of bodies. To her, it seemed like only he could give her some part of herself that she was missing. He held the key to unlock a part of her being only the Makers know about. 

*

As the Master of the Knights of Ren kissed the Last Jedi, he saw the Light before him and his soul swam towards it like a man drowning in the night sea swims towards the lighthouse, and to safety. Sirens had sung him sordid lies to seduce and lead him out into the surf to drown and consume him. A desert scavenger was leading him back to the warmth of a golden sun. 

There was a whine and a deep grumble just a few feet away. Reality came rushing back in and their eyes flew open, dripping faces turning in tandem to look up at a bewildered Wookie. Chewbacca was standing at a respectable distance, turned away from them, making his presence known but waiting. 

Rey grabbed ahold of herself and got to her feet, helped by Ben who was slowly coming to his senses too. He stood up straight and she felt a fury equal to her own start to burn in his heart. 

She looked up at Ben Solo, seeing the resolve there. Nothing would come between them, again. No Master would break this man’s spirit and control him ever again. Determined and hopeful, Rey of Jakku strode forward. 

“C’mon Chewie,” she announced. “We have a god to kill.”


	9. Compromise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Ben Solo / Kylo Ren must resolve his double life. Everyone has to find where their strengths lie and use them.

Ben Solo picked up his lightsaber and then his Ren helmet. He had a feeling that even though he was done with being Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, the First Order was not done with him. In his present state he was a refugee, but he had a mission, and he needed all the help he could get. 

He strode forward purposefully. Chewie stepped in, blocking his path, forcing him to look up at the Wookie. Meeting those ice-blue eyes, a terrible shame filled Ben and he looked down. Then he raised his chin to Chewie, ready. 

Rey heard the wet smack and spun around in alarm. Chewie was helping Ben get back up, and then she saw the huge shiner bloom on Ben's face. It was a downpayment. If he ever fucked up again, Chewie would let him have the rest of it. 

Once the towering man and the even taller Wookie reached her, they walked together to Poe's beloved X-wing. They barely managed to squeeze in, all of them putting up with uncomfortably close quarters, but it was a short flight to the Falcon - thankfully. 

When Poe, Finn, Rose, and the droids saw who was coming towards the  _ Falcon _ , there was a stunned silence. 

"The Force is a  _ terrible _ thing," Rey spat as she neared her friends. "A blessing  _ and _ a curse." 

They brought him onboard and the tall Dark-side user went straight to the closet they’d improvised into a brig, where he sat in silence.

The Supreme Leader had a bittersweet expression: half of defeat, half of victory over his own demons. 

In the lounge, the rest of them sat around the chess table: none of them quite knew what to do with their prisoner. They knew they had a mission, but that was the extent of it. They had captured the enemy, but that enemy was their General's beloved son. And he was also the Leader of the First Order, still. 

"What, do we take him back to the base?" asked Poe, not seeing any other options. 

"He could stand trial, be judged," said Rose.

"Then be executed and that will be settled," added Finn. They looked at him. "What?"

"We didn't execute you, did we?" Rose reminded him.

"Well... no, but this is different: I never committed any war crimes,” he pointed out. “In fact, I helped you. Many times."

"You didn't have Snoke in  _ your _ head, did you?" Rey was fuming.

"There you go defending your  _ Sith boyfriend _ again," the ex-stormtrooper said sarcastically. 

"He's not my  _ boyfriend _ , he's- he's much more than that. I can't explain it," she struggled to make them see. Now, she was upset.

"I bet he is. And I bet you can." Finn challenged her, getting up. "This is shit and you all know it." 

He stormed out of the room, Rose following him. 

<We take him to Leia.> Chewie stated, ending the argument. He was right. This matter was for General Organa to judge.

On the way back, Poe piloted his X-wing while Chewie and Rey flew the  _ Falcon _ . They left the  _ Silencer _ behind, since there was no way they could land the thing near the base and not get shot out of the sky first. Once they were in hyperspace, Rey came back to the lounge so the girls could study the strange artifacts they had found. Ben stayed in the little cell, silent like a man preparing to meet his Maker. 

**

It was night when they landed on base. 

They had a choice to make: did they dare drag the man stewing in the makeshift brig to his mother handcuffed, or not? 

"No one knows we have him. It may be tempting to announce to the Galaxy that we defeated the Supreme Leader, but I'm not sure it would stop the First Order," Poe reasoned. "They formed up out of the defeated Empire, remember? Remember the chaos?" 

They all remembered. Many planets and even whole systems had changed hands like marbles in some galactic schoolyard. Long-restrained conflicts had arisen in systems formerly held together by the Empire, and which had not been recuperated by the budding New Republic.

Faced with the prospect of such turmoil, there would always be those who preferred a stable power structure, even a harsh one, to an uncertain freedom. 

Decision made, Rey ran down the ramp of the  _ Falcon _ at a sprint. The others left the ship, promising discretion; Poe and Chewie stayed near the entrance, guarding it. 

When Rey made it to the Comm Center, there was a hushed silence and some malaise. Looking around at the bleak faces, she began to worry. 

"The General is in the Medical Recovery Unit,” a medic told her. “It's her heart. I hope you have good news."

"I do," she assured them and was immediately led to the general’s bedside.

_ I hope.  _

Leia lay on an elevated bed, machines flickering and beeping as they monitored her laboring heart. Her eyes fluttered open when she heard Rey come in, but then closed again. She managed a weak motion, gesturing for Rey to come close. Rey found a veiny hand and squeezed it. 

"We have him, Leia. We brought your son back," she whispered quietly. "But... we're not sure what to do with him." 

Quietly, she explained the situation. 

"Smart," Leia croaked out. 

Rey sat there, feeling helpless. Then she remembered something. 

"I think I can help. Will you let me?" she asked, a little nervously.

After a hesitant second, there was a slight nod. She placed her hand over the matriarch’s heart.

Rey closed her eyes and let herself feel the Force around her. She felt that bright core of Light burning inside her, then transferred her awareness down her arm, to her hand. She breathed deeply, then stretched her awareness beyond herself and into Leia's ailing body. Inside her mind she could feel the life busily working to repair the older woman’s body. There was much to do; age had deteriorated it as it would, and the unprotected space-walk outside the  _ Raddus _ had caused further damage to the matriarch's body. There was nothing Rey could really focus on. She saw Leia's heart had damage, but didn't know how to fix it, so she left it alone. Perhaps, she thought, she could just give some of her own life-force and let nature do its work. 

After a time, she opened her eyes again. The medic was standing there, looking at her in amazement. 

"What did you do?" he gasped.

"I don't know, I just... gave, I guess," Rey told him as she removed her hand. 

The General was getting up. "I feel better, now," she said, her voice stronger. "Give me my clothes."

Rey wheeled her out of the mobile hospital, herself half leaning on the wheelchair like a crutch as she made their way towards  _ the Falcon. _

Poe was on his way to meet her, after waiting long enough to worry. He took over pushing the wheelchair forward, fussing at both of them for putting themselves through so much pain for one man. 

"Let's see that Sith Wayfinder you brought," Leia announced loudly, stating her decision to keep secret the catch the crew had made. 

Finally they made it to the ship. Poe and Chewie helped Leia get up in front of the steep ramp and she stood there for a minute. Then she motioned to them and the men helped her and brought her to the brig to see the man awaiting her. 

Rey listened in silence to the deep, wracking sobs that came out of the cell for the better part of an hour before falling asleep where she sat, exhausted. 

** 

When finally Leia emerged from the cell she was pale, but calm. 

"He's agreed to remain in there for now," she announced. "Then he'll have to get back, or at the very least communicate with his command staff. He says he can retrieve holocrons and more texts from the First Order’s library to help us defeat the Last Sith Master.” 

The general looked around at the group, a deep frown on her face.

“Where's Finn?” she inquired. “Poe, get him and bring him here." 

*

Finn was having the most surreal conversation of his whole life. 

"You want me to escort - sorry  _ accompany _ \- Kylo Ren back to his command ship and infiltrate the storm-troopers to see if I can find other dissidents and start a mutiny? Am I getting this right Poe?" he asked, eye wide.

"Essentially, yeah," the young captain confirmed, giving his friend a solid pat on the shoulder in commiseration.

"No,” Finn refused, shaking his head. “ _ No way _ . I'm not doing it. Besides, I was the only one."

"Are you sure about that?" Poe asked, skeptical.

"I certainly never heard of it spoken in the locker rooms, that's for sure," the former Stormtrooper said, thinking of the strict regulations that had ruled his existence for so many years.

"No? Think about it. Why not?" Leia prodded him.

"Anyone talking that shit would be re-programmed,” Finn told them. “Or disappeared," he added ominously.

"And was there a lot of that happening? Re-programming?" asked Leia.

"Yeah, there were  _ some _ , but ..." his voice trailed off in thought.

But there  _ were _ some, weren't there? He knew a few of his buddies had been re-assigned, too. Or they had not come back from battle, presumed dead. The terrible memories played across Finn’s face, clear for them all to see. 

"Poe," Leia said, gently. "Let him be. This is too much to ask of him. It's too much to ask of anyone."  _ And yet, it's what I've just asked of my son _ .

***

Refueled, the  _ Falcon _ lifted off. They had to go back to Kef Bir, to put Kylo Ren on his _ Silencer _ and set their plan in motion _. _

Meanwhile, they were studying the wayfinder. Rose sat with the Dark side user in his cell, asking questions and gathering every scrap of information she could while they had him. He was not exactly harmless, but there was an air of surrender to him, like a wild rescued animal that submits out of sheer exhaustion. They'd left the door open and Rey was keeping an eye on him. Or rather, this close, she could keep a mind-link with him with little effort other than to endure being buffeted by the emotions roiling inside him. The ice pack over his eye had diminished the swelling, she saw, but it was still turning very black.

"So you say we need to hook up the Nav-system to the contact points here and here?" Rose asked as she pointed to a few spots on the black and blue pyramid-shaped object. "We'll need to hack the Nav-system, to accept the coordinates, then." 

Rey walked by, and hearing the tech-talk, she stopped and stood in the doorway to listen. The little cell was cramped already, so she didn’t try to squeeze in.

"That's what the illustrations show. I'm not sure of the texts, I'm not very... technical," he admitted. __

_ I'm more of a poet.  _

Connected to his mind, Rey caught his quiet thought and looked him up and down consideringly before turning her attention back to the matter at hand.

"Ben,” Rey said, “come out into the lounge. We need the space to study this thing, and a table for the books". 

After a hesitation, he got up and walked to where he had spent so much of his childhood, playing chess with Chewie in this very room. Sometimes, he even won a game or two. 

"You know, that shiner's gonna attract some attention. Rey could Force-heal that for you," Rose told him.

"It's alright, hardly anyone ever sees my face anyway,” he said with a shrug, unconcerned. “Besides, I've earned it.” 

Then it registered.

“Wait.  _ What did you say? _ " Ben looked up, lips parted in shock.

"Rey could heal that." Rose repeated, nodding to Rey. 

"It's just something I picked up recently,” Rey told him with a smile, a hint of pride coloring her expression. “A bit crazy, really, but I've done it twice, now." 

_ My sweet, sweet Rey is a Force-Healer. I don't deserve this. I don't deserve  _ her _. _

Rey felt him shut down, then, felt the doubt. _He feels guilty. He_ is _guilty._ _But he can read Sith, and we need him to control the First Order. And for that, he needs to be confident - as much as Kylo Ren was._ She remembered the soft-metal Dagger, then. Turning to look for it, she found it in the satchel and brought it out to show him. 

"Here, there's this thing that should help us defeat the Tor Valum; you can have a look at it too," she suggested in excitement.

_ It was the Dagger of Mortis. _

Rey listened to his musings, watching Ben turn it in his hands, staring at it in disbelief. 

"Where did you get this?" he asked in awe.

"Those cultists on Mustafar gave it to us, as well as the books and those other things, after I healed one of them," she told him.

There was a sudden tension.

_ I killed those Guardians. I'm a monster, _ he thought.

* _ You were _ * she answered his unspoken thought, emphasizing the second word. 

* _ You  _ **_are_ ** * said another voice, breaking in. It was one they'd never heard before. 

"He's found me!" Ben exclaimed as he jumped up, eyes wild. What felt like a steel door closed shut in his mind. 

"I heard him," confirmed Rey. It was a gritty, alien voice. "You shut him out."

"It wasn't me,” he denied. “I think it was..."

* _ It was me, Anakin. Ben, I can't keep him out. You have to be Kylo Ren to push against him, hide your true self from him. Or you won't get near him. _ *

"I don't want to be Ren anymore, Grandfather, I want to be free!" the young man said, an edge of devastation in his voice.

* _ Ben, study my original mission: you are the Chosen One, now. _ * 

There was silence as Anakin withdrew, but the door he’d slammed on the Dark intruder still held, for the time being. 

Then Rey heard Luke in her head. 

* _ Move him back to his cell and give him his Mask of Ren, he's got a show to put on. _ * 

The shouting had attracted Finn and Chewie, and they ran into the room. They had their blasters out, trying to puzzle out what was happening before them. 

Ben Solo, his face intense with concentration, was being pushed back into his cell and given his helmet. Rey, her face just as intent though tears ran down her cheeks, clasped his hand. Then the Plastiglass door was closed, locking him in, a prisoner, once again. 

Ben and Rey looked at each other a moment more before he turned away and donned his mask. As they all watched, his stance changed - he straightened to his full height, uncurled his shoulders, posture becoming rigid. 

Then the whole room seemed to darken. A dark cloud of menace emanated from his whole being - it was terrifying.

*

The door in his head was forced open and Kylo Ren faced what came through.

_ *I don’t know you,* _ he told the voice in his head coldly. _ *I don’t recognize you. Get out.*  _

_ *You will know me as your Master.* _

_ *I AM the Master*  _ Kylo Ren drew strength from a well of Darkness inside him that had filled with resentment for years under Snoke’s domination - and pushed back against this new threat to his integrity.

_ *We shall see.* _

The voice was gone. Kylo Ren had succeeded in pushing it out... he hoped; it had taken a sudden, intense rush of Rage. He shook with it for long seconds before letting it recede back into the Dark depths he had called it from. 

Exhausted, Ben Solo slumped back into his cot.

*

Locking him up had been a precaution; how much it would restrain him if that thing successfully possessed him was anyone's guess. Rey shuddered at the thought.

"What was that? What the fuck just happened?" demanded Poe, unnerved.

"The Sith Master is not done with him, yet. It's not going to give him up." Rey said quietly, hoping it wouldn't come after her. She was Ben's equal in the Force, but Snoke had shown her what Ancient power was: she knew she was no match for it. 

"So he's back to being Kylo Ren,” Finn commented, his tone making it clear how he felt about  _ that _ . “Where's his lightsaber ... you didn't give him his lightsaber, did you?"

"No,” Rey reassured her friends. “We will when we put him back on his ship. The mission continues. I guess, this way, he has a better chance at foxing the First Order’s inspection."

Finn looked at his foe-not-foe, dubious.

"This is incredibly risky,” he cautioned. “How do we know he won't betray us? I  _ won't _ be escorting him, he'll be alone."

"He won't be alone. We can link again,” she said, sure of their connection, now. Luke's Force-Ghost had instructed her on a way to shield their communications from outside interference. She looked at Ben’s slumped form thoughtfully before continuing with growing confidence. “And he'll have his Grandfather guiding him." 

"Darth Vader?" Finn whispered as something stirred inside him: awe. Years of training were hard to walk away from. 

"Not Darth Vader," Rey corrected him with a smile. She had been studying during their trips. “Anakin Skywalker.”

***

Poe deposited Supreme Leader Kylo Ren next to  _ the Silencer, _ tossing him his weapon and one of the other artifacts they had found. He’d use it as an alibi for his absence.

"We’ll stay here a little longer, see if there's anything else we can find," the Resistance captain said, stepping back from the tall man he didn’t quite trust, yet - orders or no orders.

"I know what I have to do," Kylo Ren said in that robotic voice. "I will divert the fleet away from our mission’s objective. I have already started to change the First Order's mindset." 

"You did? How?" Poe questioned, frowning in surprise. This was unexpected.

"By making it more inclusive, for starters," Ren told him.

Poe contemplated him for a moment. 

" ‘Treat your men as you would your own beloved sons. And they will follow you into the deepest valley,’” the pilot quoted his - second - favorite General.

“Good luck, my enemy," Poe added, but Ren had already retreated deep into his own thoughts. 

When Poe made it back to the  _ Falcon _ , he saw there was a group of natives surrounding it.


	10. You are not alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn makes new friends. Kylo Ren makes new enemies

They sat hair-covered, four-legged mounts built for speed and ranging across the rolling grass plains they stood in. Finn had already lowered his weapon. Rose was speaking with their leader, a dusk-skinned, long-legged, muscular woman who called herself Jannah. 

"This is the second time you come here in three dias. You don't look like scavengers, but our skiff went missing," the woman said accusingly.

"Poe, this is Jannah,” Rose introduced them quickly before turning back to address the expectant leader. “We forgot to bring the skiff back." 

"Ah. I'll get some ropes and a grappling hook for the X-wing; the sea is calmer now, maybe I can find it, tow it back," Poe offered and smiled, looking at the strong-looking woman before him.

"We would appreciate that. Where did you get the X-wing?" She smiled back. 

"This is  _ my _ X-wing," Poe said proudly. "Well, my third one. Hopefully I'll keep it longer than the last one. Takes time to get to know one, how sensitive it is, how it reacts."

"Like our Orbacks." She dismounted. 

"Yes I suppose it is, like anything or any creature that supports us, I guess. I'll go find your skiff, now. I take it, it floats?" He smirked and took off.

Jannah turned back to Finn and Rose as Rey came down the ramp to meet her. 

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Jannah asked them. 

"Some. We're not sure yet," answered Rose, squinting into the setting sun.

"We saw you picked up a man, too. Before. All dressed in black. He looked-" 

Rey cut her off. "He looked lost. He  _ was _ lost. Now he knows where to go." Best not to say too much on that.

"Ah.” The chieftain gave them an appraising look before saying: “You're with the Resistance."

It wasn’t a question.

"Yes, we are. And you?" Rose felt confident around the woman before her, like she already knew her.

"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me. Let's just say we're free, now," Jannah answered somewhat evasively.

Finn looked at her. There was something about the way Jannah held herself, he could see -- something familiar. There were scraps of First Order armor and equipment mixed in with other stuff amongst her clothing. She spoke in Basic, but with that telling Imperial accent to it. 

"My name is Finn now, but it used to be FN-2187. I was a conscript of the First Order. Deserted. Now Resistance," he blurted. 

"You?!" She stared in disbelief. There was a short hesitation before she raised her chin proudly. "I was TZ-1719. All of us here were Storm-troopers. We mutinied at the battle of Ensid. They told us to fire on civilians...but we wouldn't do it."

_ Leia and Poe were right. A whole company. Wow. _ Finn thought and felt the elation of discovering he was not crazy after all. He grinned, "thank you for telling me Jannah. I thought I was alone." 

"So there  _ are _ more out there, from among the ranks,” she nodded. “We suspected as much."

***

As Ben Solo made his approach to his Flag-ship the _ Steadfast _ , he steeled himself to become Kylo Ren again. 

He would gather as much information as he could, grab his things, justify yet another excursion - the senior staff never minded his little side-quests much - and hopefully send them all on some rogue goose-droid chase far away from the Resistance Base. And then get the hell out of there. 

Hux met him at the docking bay, sleep still imprinted on his face. 

"Supreme Leader, back from one of your little excursions, I see. Did you find what you were...  _ looking for _ ?" Hux was looking at him with a decidedly strange expression on his face. Was that  _ amusement _ ?

"Some, General Hux. I will need more documents for my studies. But first, I'll need a full report," he said sternly, assuming an air of command to bring the general to heel. 

"A full report, Sir? Well, yes. Yes of course, Sir. We'll have that ready within the hour," Hux assured him a little too agreeably. Kylo frowned slightly, wondering what he was up to.

"Send me Captain Phasma as well, I'll be in my quarters." 

"Yes Sir,” the red-haired irritant confirmed before shooting his leader a look. “The Knights of Ren have a report for you as well."

The  _ Knights _ . He'd almost forgotten about them. They knew Kylo Ren almost better than he himself did. He nodded. 

"Thank you, General, that will be all."

Hux watched him march off, a bit unsettled by the encounter. Kylo Ren had seemed the reasonable, calm, confident man he had always hoped he would be. The distraction and apathy was gone, the childish rage, contained.  _ I should have made him remove his mask to make sure it was him _ , he thought, bemused.  _ Did he find his scavenger girl after all? Did they...? _ Hux realized he wouldn't be able to tell if Kylo had killed her or fucked her. Maybe both. 

Either way, things seemed settled now. 

*

Phasma was standing at ease before his desk, giving her report. Another fifty Stormtroopers had been sent for re-programming, three have been executed, ten have escaped; they were tracking them, however. It was more than they typically averaged, but still not enough to threaten their power structure, she assured him. He listened to the numbers with new interest. This information would have been useful to FN- to ... Finn. He looked at Phasma herself with curiosity. 

"Captain,” he asked. “how long have you been with us?"

She blinked, surprised by the question. 

"Five years with General Hux, sir, one under your direct command. Ten years in the ranks before making Elite Stormtrooper, sir," she recited her record dutifully.

"We're glad you survived that fall, Captain.” he allowed with some admiration. “You certainly clawed your way back to health after that. Well done."

"The medical team was very competent sir, I owe them my life." 

Few scars remained on her patrician features, and they had managed to save her eye. 

"Yes, I made sure you got the best care we had," he told her - a lie. He hadn't given a damn about her, then. He did now, and he needed to make certain of her loyalties.

"Thank you, sir,” She paused before continuing. “I was unable to keep a constant watch on your quarters, sir, but sanitary came by daily, at its usual time." 

He glanced at his bed in the other room; it was fresh made, the book of Sufi was out of sight. 

As soon as she was gone he removed his helm. With his eye still bruised, it was even more uncomfortable than usual and he pressed his fingers gingerly to the swelling. He could go to the med-bot, get an anti-inflammatory shot, at least. The pain made him think of Chewie, who'd almost killed him but missed; and later just hadn't. Thinking of Chewie made him think of his father, who had rescued the Wookie from slavery. 

He put those thoughts out of his mind. There was a signal at his door: the Knights of Ren were here. He checked hastily for the book, saw it was on his nightstand.

Ben felt for the incriminating little Light that glowed within him. He compressed it, making it smaller and smaller, until it became a mere pinpoint of brilliance - like a diamond. He hid it at the very center of his being, tucked away in a secret fold of his heart. Kylo Ren would confront his Knights, now. He put his mask back on, and took a breath to calm himself.

He opened the door and called Ap'lek Ren in, his second-in-command now that he was Supreme Leader. This little office wasn't quite big enough to contain all of them, and if things went awry, he would rather face just the one. 

"How did the trip to Mustafar go, Ren?" Kylo inquired.

"We met the Guardians of the Covax Fen, Master Ren,” the Knight reported. “They are no more."

"Did they put up a worthy fight? I defeated a dozen of them when I went there." A reminder wouldn't hurt.

"We enjoyed ourselves with the rest of them,” the Ren said with Dark relish. “We managed to bring one back for you." 

"Did you? That's considerate,” Kylo acknowledged. “Did you get anything out of him?"

"He spoke after we amused ourselves with his wife. The Jedi Rey has healing powers," the Ren paused, looking at his Master expectantly. 

_ What is he waiting for... _ Then Kylo knew.

_ "WHAT?!" _ He rose and with a grand sweep of his hand sent the half-empty decanter hurtling across the room. Dark-red wine and crystal smashed against the wall and stained it like a spray of blood. "She can  _ Force-Heal _ ? Are you  _ sure _ ?"

"You can ask him yourself, we have him in an interrogation room," The Ren bounced on his toes slightly; was that ...  _ excitement _ ? 

Then the comm rang, interrupting them. 

"We are ready for you in the meeting room, Supreme Leader," an aide’s voice announced mechanically through the speaker.

"Good, I'm on my way,” Kylo confirmed, then nodded to his Knight. “Ren, I will see the prisoner after the meeting. You are dismissed with the others."

The door shut; and he had passed the test.  _ One _ Ren's test. This day was going to be the most exhausting day of his life, he was sure. 

He shut his eyes and let himself feel the Force surround him, fill him. Rey had shared how to secure their Force-communications the way Luke had shown her. He created a small packet of his progress in his mind, sent it to Rey, and was rewarded with a small sigh of relief. 

He picked up a detachment of troopers to escort him on his way to the greater meeting room. It would give him more gravitas while he marched down the corridors. He'd kept his cloak and walked in that way he knew made it billow about him, like storm clouds approaching, dark and menacing. 

Kylo Ren would have to kill someone today. 

They all looked at him as he marched in, except General Pryde and a couple others seated near him. One woman, Major Ollena, if he remembered correctly, actually blushed and looked down at her hands. It was strange how much of the power dynamics he was picking up on, now that he was actually paying attention to them. He saw how they were all very similar: all humans, every last one of them, barely any color between them. 

There were thousands of species across the Galaxy, of all cultures and allegiances, some of them brutish, some of them  _ brilliant _ , and the First Order had decided to limit itself to just one kind. No wonder there was a Resistance. He caught himself before he laughed out loud. What a challenge lay ahead!

He strode to his chair and waited. 

They waited. 

Then they all hurriedly stood up beside their chairs in surprised respect.  _ Good _ . 

He seated himself and they sat back down. He knew the protocols. Next time he would make them wait for a signal. They wanted a rigid structure to rule them all? He would give it to them. He saw Hux almost beam with satisfaction as they started their reports.

***

Poe and Jannah kissed one last time before he went up the ramp. He waved at her, and at her little band of brothers, before he shut the door and went back to the pilot's seat. He let Chewbacca pilot the X-wing; he seemed to enjoy it greatly, even if he had to hunch in its seat to fit. Finn sat with him in the co-pilot seat. 

"You scoundrel," his friend commented.

"What? She seemed to want my attention. I gave it to her," Poe defended himself.

"You sure did. Loudly," Finn snarked.

"What? You were listening?" he squinted at his dusk-skinned co-pilot, eyes laughing. 

"I didn't have much of a choice, did I?"

"Ah, c'mon, it's the same with you and Rose..." he ribbed good-naturedly.

"No, it's not," Finn denied, offended.

"What? don't BS me, you've been together for weeks," Poe raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, but... not like that."

"I don't believe you. Why wouldn't you? She seems willing enough," he speculated.

"She  _ does _ ? I mean she does..." Finn’s cheeks turned a very dark shade of... darker.

Poe looked at him, astounded.

"No. Don't tell me. You don't know what to do?!"

"That wasn't exactly part of our training as Stormtroopers, you know," Finn ground out, blushing even harder.

"I see. Jannah seemed to know what she wanted, though."

"Jannah's been free for longer than me. Anyway, a woman always knows what she wants, right?"

"Right,” Poe confirmed, then leaned in with a significant look. “Remember that next time you're in an intimate situation with Rose. Listen to her."

*

Rey and Rose sat together in the lounge, studying the gathered artifacts. Rey stilled for a moment, then gave a great sigh. 

"He's doing ok, so far," she told Rose in explanation when the small woman looked at her questioningly. 

"Good,” her friend said with a smile. “Check this out: do you think this script I wrote will do it?"

"Maybe, but we should test it on another ship than the one we're flying in, first," Rey said, unwilling to risk the  _ Falcon _ .

"Right," Rose chuckled. "What about the dagger?"

"I don't know. The description seems accurate." 

There were loose notes slipped in with the Jedi books that seemed to confirm Ben’s assessment that this was, in fact, the Dagger of Mortis. 

"Anakin Skywalker used it once before. He lost it for years, then found it again. Wait," she gasped, tensing up.

"What?" Rose tensed as well, unsure what had alarmed her friend. 

"Kylo Ren had to kill someone,” Rey stated, staring off into the distance. “He's calm again. Somewhat. I guess he made his point." 

"That Force-bond you have is a funky thing," the almond-eye technician commented, unnerved by this arcane show of power.

"You have no idea."

***

The Supreme Leader hadn't been this attentive at a meeting since...ever, really, Hux thought. Of course, it had turned unfortunate for Colonel Eppenstin, who - once again - tried to pull some advantage for himself and his… mistresses, in that stupid, arrogant way he did. 

He would never do it again. Kylo Ren had dispatched him quickly, in a rather cold-blooded, calmer way then he usually did. There had been a flash of heat, true, but not the conflagration of rage the Ren was known and feared for. This outburst had been short, even calculated, if one could believe that of their usually impetuous Dark Lord. The rest of the meeting had been more subdued after that; each officer giving their report according to their region or their competence. The masked warlord even took notes, for once. 

And then he said something... funny. 

"We will begin recruiting among other species. We will present them with the opportunity to join us," Ren announced.

Silence. Disbelief. 

"Unless you want to start using clones again?” he added pointedly. “Our numbers are down. Conscripting children breeds resentment among the population and it takes years for them to be of any use to us. Desertion is at an all-time high. General Pryde?"

The old General snapped to attention; livid, but listening.

"I want you to plan a strategy for this. We can start with a small, experimental contingent. Major Ollena will assist you. That will be all," the Supreme Leader finished, not allowing for any argument.

He stood up. They all got to their feet at once. He left the room, everyone knowing in no uncertain terms who was in charge of the First Order, now. 

Kylo marched back to his quarters, again with a troop escort. He was tempted to seek out dissidents himself, but they would certainly not be loyal to him unless he made himself very vulnerable. Just that little task he had given his staff had made him brand-new, interesting enemies. 

And, hopefully, some open-minded allies as well.


	11. The Interrogation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of a great day on The Steadfast.

In his quarters, he formed another packet in his mind and sent it to Rey: "They've found you". 

Then he gave himself a break. He washed his face, and called for Sanitary to clean the mess of wine and crystal he'd made. He ate. 

He picked up the book of poetry:

> _ My heart wandered through the world  _
> 
> _ Constantly seeking after my cure  _
> 
> _ But the sweet and delicious waters of life  _
> 
> _ Had to break through the granite of my heart _

_ Life _ . He thought of Rey. She'd kissed him back. They'd shared a breath. The memory helped fuel the little Light in him. 

Then he covered himself in Darkness.

He would train and spend some energy before "interrogating" the prisoner. He needed to awaken his reflexes too. The Ren could figure him out at any moment. _Anyone_ could figure him out at any moment. 

***

The crew of the  _ Millennium Falcon _ made it back to base. Rey received the message from Ben and shared it with Leia immediately, who called for preparations for a move. No one spoke of the improbable pact they'd made with Kylo Ren, a.k.a. Ben Solo. No point in exposing him, or putting doubts in the minds of their members. If things went well, Ben Solo would contribute enough to be trusted. 

When they gathered for roll call, Finn stood to make an announcement.

"We found Stormtrooper deserters on Kef Bir. Deserters like me," he said, fighting to contain his excitement.

"Are you saying we should accept these deserters and traitors among us?" someone called out. There was obvious doubt on the face of the man who had spoken up. 

"Hey, I'm doing my part, aren't I? I'll admit it took me a little while to overcome my fears - and understand what we're all doing here - " he looked at Rose and smiled. "But others are out there, and they know the difference between right and wrong. There’s more than a little dissension among the ranks. They just need a place to go to." 

"And what do we do with these dissenters?" another voice shouted skeptically.

"If we can infiltrate one of their ships, we may be able to disable the First Order from within,” Finn explained his idea, confidence growing. “We may be able to organize rebellions on their bases. Millions of lives could be spared this way."

***

He'd trained and refreshed himself. Before leaving his room, Ben stopped by his Grandfather's relic. He reached out and touched the melted mask, but there was nothing. 

Then, like a breath, Anakin’s voice flowed into his mind. 

_ *I’m not in there, Ben. I made that choice, even if it was late. Like you, now. _ * 

The Knights of Ren met him as he walked out, falling in behind him like a trail of death. Crew and troopers alike scattered or froze before them. At the interrogation chamber, he stopped: only one of them would accompany him inside. Which one?

"Ushar, with me,” he commanded. “The rest wait outside."

As soon as he was in the room, the  _ Torturer _ went for his victim like a hungry Death Hound. He brought out pincers and pulled out two fingernails before Kylo stopped him. The Alazmec screamed in pain but did not cry. It was time for a Force-probe into his mind. 

* _ You have been brave _ .* He told the immobilized man through the link. * _ My Grandfather is grateful for your service. _ * 

Kylo felt surprise coming from the man. 

* _ I will alleviate your suffering _ .* And with that, Kylo cut him off from the pain. 

"What did you give to the raiders?" he demanded out loud for his knight to hear.

"Sith texts we found when we cleared out the ruin. Two artifacts we don't know. And a dagger," the Alazmec breathed out.

"Do you know what the dagger, or any of the relics, are?" he asked cautiously. Best to keep the Dagger of Mortis a secret.

"No."

* _ Good, _ * was Kylo's strange response. "What else can you tell me?"

"One of the raiders healed one of our own," the fanatic said, awe in his voice. "That is why we gave them the artifacts. We would have given them to you if you'd asked."

"But I was a brute." A pause. "He was healed by a Jedi. Think about that."

Ushar stirred beside him. 

_ That was a strange thing I said. I must be more careful.  _

"Do you have any family left on Mustafar?" he continued, voice deliberately harsh.

"Family? I, I - " the Alazmec suddenly shut up, tensing.  _ He does _ , felt Ben. 

"Answer the Master!" yelled Ushar, but before he could touch the Guardian, the Ren fell to the cold-tiled floor, pierced through by his Master’s crimson saber. 

_ One _ , Kylo thought.

The Cultist looked at the Dark Lord in mute shock. 

"Thank you,” said his interrogator. “I will end your suffering now. We will look after your family." 

And he put out the light in the fanatic’s eyes. Then he picked up Ushar's war club and bashed the Guardian's head in, yelling as he did. He worked himself into a fury before opening the door. 

Coming out into the corridor, he glared at Ap'lek. 

"I leave you Knights for barely a week and this is what happens?" he raged.

"What happened?" asked the Ren, shocked.

"He killed the prisoner before I was done questioning it. He disobeyed." He growled in a show of fury and marched on. The Ren had no choice but to abandon their fallen comrade and follow him. 

*

Back in his room, Kylo Ren stripped and went in for a shower. He stank. His clothes stank. His helmet stank. His soul stank, he was sure of it. Three deaths today. 

Ushar Ren. How many years had they been together, he and the Knights of Ren? Six at least. He was tempted to take them with him to confront this Tor Valum, but doubted they would obey him that far - they had not been keen on following him after Snoke’s death. He’d only managed to keep his title of Master over them by winning the challenges to his power he accepted during the Madness. He’d almost killed one, then; now he had killed one in fact. 

Now, there were five left. They were remnants of a time of blind faith in Snoke’s personal vendetta against Luke and the Jedi. The Jedi had been corrupted by hubris, but the Knights had taken retribution further than necessary for the failings of the Jedi. It had been a clash of extremes; neither side could be right. Kylo had been caught up in it and he had committed atrocities in the name of a religion neither Master Snoke nor he had truly been anointed in: the Sith. 

He had committed atrocities, and now had just killed three others who had not even been armed and fighting him. He was a wretch, he thought in disgust, but he would right his wrongs. He would die doing so, if he had to. He owed his mother that much. 

He ordered his dinner - he couldn’t afford to let his strength flag - and the collection of texts and notes that had been salvaged from the  _ Supremacy _ . Snoke's personal notes, especially. Then he looked at the new artifact he had brought with him. 

_ They would have given those things to me if I had asked,  _ he thought. _ What a waste.  _

The object was actually a storage cube for a letter to Padme from Anakin. He hesitated. 

* _ Go on. It won't be wasted if you read it, _ * prodded his Grandfather. 

_ My sweetest Padme _

...

By the end, Ben was crying, as was the voice in his head. So much wasted, destroyed by pride and fear.  _ I am afraid I'm not as strong as Darth Vader, but I will be as strong as Anakin Skywalker,  _ Ben swore in his heart.

Before he fell asleep, Rey appeared, laying before him in his bed. She reached for his hand and took it in hers, looking into his eyes for that pinpoint of light he had hidden from everyone he had ever known. If Kylo had no right to claim her, he couldn’t deny her, either. 

He reached for all of her and drew her close. She kissed him, a lingering kiss. She turned her back to him, snuggling herself close, and he breathed her scent in, feeling desire rise. He often slept in only light boxers and she had nothing on but that thin shift. 

Grabbing a handful of Rey’s hair, he pushed it aside so he could kiss her neck. She sighed and he saw a flush cover her shoulders, as she pushed herself harder against him. There was no denying what was growing between them, now. 

Kylo Ren suddenly felt the urge to grab her and just plunge himself brusquely into her, dry and hurtful, even if doing so meant he would never see her again after taking whatever brief pleasure he would get in the moment. He shook with the staggering struggle to control himself. That was what his Ren brothers did. Not him - not Ben. 

Rey heard his breathing become harsh and for a terrifying moment, she thought he would ravage her... 

But that fear had the unexpected effect of making her throb inside with anticipation. Ren may be pulled to her Light, but Rey was attracted to his Darkness. 

"Touch me," she demanded in a hoarse whisper. 

He moved a hand forward and reached for her hair again, grabbed a handful of it, and pulled at it, hard. The struggle was real. Rey sensed the need for a middle-ground they could meet in; she had her own frustrations. So, she tipped her head back and hit him in the collarbone, hard enough to hurt him. He hissed and slipped an arm beneath her, drawing her close, his hand cupping a breast; a hardened nipple slipped through fingers and he squeezed it hard enough that she gasped. 

He pressed himself forward and his hips made contact with her buttocks, his hardened shaft settling into the cleft. She wasn’t afraid of him and he could almost be Kylo with her, though he knew she had no idea what he was capable of. Even he had not fully plumbed the depths of his Darkness. 

Rey swayed and reached for his hand, put it over her hip, gliding it forward and down into the little jungle of curly hair to share something with him again that she only ever did herself. Then she reached back behind and found his willing cock, freeing him out of his shorts, squeezing and making him throb in her hand as she felt the strength and the size of him. She let out a loud breath and heard him gasp in answer. His hand on her mound pushed over her clit and reached between her lips, finding the sticky wetness awaiting him there. She jerked with a sudden jolt of pleasure and he pressed against her, grinding his hips into her soft flesh. 

Hungry, she pushed his fingers inside her; they were hard and calloused, and the sensation burned. Her body throbbed on them and she felt an echoing pulse from his cock, grinding between her cheeks. He pushed his fingers further inside her, feeling around then sliding them in and out, stroking her clit with his thumb, making her mewl like a cat. She let go of him, her hand just pushing against the bed so she could lean back into him, and he felt himself grow close to release. 

But it wasn’t enough anymore.

She reached back for him again, grabbed his throbbing length, and pushed him down between her thighs. He slid directly along her vulva; she was warm and wet and  _ ready _ for him.

With  _ immense _ effort, Ben Solo stopped himself and she made a vexed sound. 

"How far do you want to take this?" he panted with the effort of holding back.

"I don't have control over this anymore," she ruefully admitted, and that sent a jolt through his whole body. 

"Have you- have you ever done this before?" he asked. Would he be her first? If he took her through the Force-bond, would it be as real?

"I’ve messed around with a couple of boys, yeah. But I've never wanted -" she paused, the realization hitting her just as she was saying it. 

" _ I've never wanted it so much as I want you _ ." she finished breathlessly.

He rocked back, floored. The struggle was back: Kylo Ren exulting in triumph, sensing conquest within reach, while Ben Solo wanted nothing more but to preserve her and  _ love her _ in the flesh. 

Rey was struggling as well, a violent passion within her wanting to possess the DarkSider and bring him to his knees, as much as it wanted to feel the searing burn of lust in and on her body. An equally strong part of her wanted to hold Ben and kiss away all his suffering, cherishing their new intimacy. 

"I'm not going to fake this," he said, risking her wrath. "I'll meet you in the flesh, if you want to take me." 

He withdrew his fingers from her, grazing that sweet center of need as his hand pulled away with regret, despite his resolve.

Reluctantly, she moved away but turned back to face him again. Turning, Rey leaned over to kiss him, his nose, his eyes. On her face, he could read frustration, but he could also see his promise was accepted. They laced their fingers together while he let her fade away.

He’d made the right choice.

He rubbed his fingertips together, feeling the slickness that had emerged from her - for him. After a while, he fell asleep, the scent of her still with him. 

There were no nightmares. 

***

In another area of the ship, General Pryde and a few others were discussing in low voices. 

"He's killed one of his own Knights. That's two deaths today. And one torture." 

"Yes but this...reform is so...surprising?"

"Has he finally matured into a proper Leader?"

"I liked him better when he didn't give a damn about gouvernance. We had more freedom."

"Like Eppenstin?"

"Eppenstin turned into a degenerate. We don't want degenerates in our ranks."

"Well, let's keep an eye on him. Maybe this is just a phase. We can draw up the strategy he asked for, and maybe he'll forget about it before we implement it. You all know how volatile he is."

"I think he's preparing for another trip. He sure is  _ studious  _ these days."

_ Yes he sure is...different, _ General Pryde thought as he left the room. 

** 

Kylo got up early and trained intensely before breakfast. He took the hits from his opponents with greater humor, and they started to give him the challenge he needed. Had he been coddled by his trainers all this time? As he invited genuine effort from them, he realized he learned more than he had in a long while. He had rarely felt this focused. 

Doubt was gone. Even the risk of being discovered felt lesser, because his purpose was simple and straightforward: he would unite the Galaxy under his care - all of it. He ate in the officer's mess for the first time in years. At first they kept hushed tones, and he concentrated on his pig and eggs. After a while, a few decided to come sit with him.

There was so much malaise, so much distance between himself and the men he would lead. Kylo listened to their prattle, trying to puzzle them out. Some of them would betray him, he was certain, but others would try to befriend him. For the first time in ages, he felt he had choices. He kept a stern face and a polite tone in his responses, maintaining a respectful distance until he knew them better. 

For the rest of the morning, he studied his true enemy. He found that the Tor Valum had been Darth Sidious's Master - Palpatine's Master. Doubt resurfaced in his mind: it had been extremely hard to shut that evil presence out of his mind, so it was sure to try again, soon. That vision of a Dark Rey had hurt him in more ways than one, a cruel illusion to break his only kindred connection.

What other tricks would the "Master" use?

***

Back on the  _ Falcon _ , Rey was finding out more about the relationship between Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. They'd been so close that they’d developed a force-bond between them. Their falling out must have felt like heart-break, she thought, thinking of the emotions tied up in her own connection. _ But what about Ben and I? The bond started after we met as enemies. It wasn't something we grew together over years of trust. Neither Luke nor Ben speak of having had such a link between them as we do. _

Communicating with the Force-ghosts of Luke and - Anakin? - was possible because they were actually part of the Force, now. 

_ I can share some thoughts with Leia, _ she pondered,  _ but we have to be in proximity. Leia can feel her son, but it takes a horrible toll on her to communicate with him.  _

_ What we have is its own special thing, I think.  _ And then Rey found something, a term she’d not run across before: a  _ Force Dyad _ . It barely got a mention, and in the margin of the histories there was a question mark that someone had inscribed, obviously as stumped as she was. She looked through the Sith text, but they remained as indecipherable as before. She gave C-3P0 a dirty look. She needed Ben to come back soon. 

***

The Supreme Leader would inspect his flagship today. He would visit with its Captain, Frantis Griss, and with the Chief Engineer, the Chief Medical Officer, the Kitchens - all that he could in a few hours. 

Captain Phasma and a small detachment accompanied him. He found two types of people on board the ship: those who loved their trade, and those who loved power. Malcontents were nowhere to be found -  _ out of sight,  _ he thought, _ or reconditioned _ . 

He went to see the Major he had assigned for that task with General Pryde. She was one of the heads of human resources, and, sure enough, when he came into her office, she blushed a little and avoided looking at him, at first. Kylo toyed with the idea of removing his mask for her, taking advantage of her reaction to him - the scar was mostly healed, and his black eye could be attributed to his habitual training, but then thought better of it. He had enough power over her, as it was. 

"How many of the conscripts that we pick up already have a trade?" he inquired.

"I'm not sure, sir. About half? They're often too young to be very proficient in it. Many have trades that are useless to us, like caring for beasts of burden. Easier to just train them as Stormtroopers. Stormtroopers will sometimes be given services tasks, to keep them out of trouble, if that's what you're asking. But we get plenty of skilled labour from the universities, anyway. It's an honour to serve on a First Order ship. It's an honour to serve...you," she added a little breathlessly. 

_ My... she's getting bold, this one _ , he thought. He looked at her: Like Phasma, she was a tall, muscular woman of pleasing proportions and a face carved out of marble. Unlike Phasma - who held herself like a man - she had rich, thick blonde hair, and a light touch of makeup, within regulation limits. Top of her class at university and probably within the power structure on the planet she came from. She withstood his gaze, offering herself for his inspection and clearly he could just reach out and take her if he wished. 

He thought of short, angry, scrawny Rey with her thin lips and dark eyes - a lowly scavenger, at that. 

A glint of hunger appeared in the Major's eyes. He knew that look. Rey looked at him with care. She felt through his Darkness but cared for the Light in him; it was not pity, he realized, though recently it was mixed in with a lot of lust. Setting his thoughts of her aside, he turned his attention back to the bombshell major. 

"It's easier to train them as generic soldiers, but we will start offering them the possibility to continue their trade, if they have one. We can find equivalencies for the ones like beast caretakers... maybe they would like to maintain the vehicle fleets?” he paused, looking at her expectantly.

“Besides," he joked, thinking of FN-2187 who’d simply frozen in inaction. "Have you seen how they shoot? Some of them are more dangerous to us then they are to the enemy."

He turned and walked out of the office. On his way back, he felt a strange sensation, like a pinprick on the edge of his consciousness. Something was trying to worm its way into his mind - the Tor Valum. He didn't have a strategy to deal with that one, yet. Lying to humans, even to the Ren, was, if not exactly easy, workable. But keeping out the Master Sith? He had to use the Dark side to do it. Anakin helped, at least, and on Kef Bir his mother had also reached him, but it had nearly cost her her life. Rey was the balance of the Force that he needed, he knew. 

"Through Passion, I gain Strength," he murmured.

"Excuse me, sir?" Captain Phasma asked from her post at his shoulder. They had stopped at his unexpected words. 

"Do you know the Sith Coda, Captain?" he asked her musingly.

"The Sith Coda ... they tell us about it sir, but it's not part of our training," she told him, a slight edge of confusion in her otherwise professional tone.

"It ends like this: 'Through Victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall set me free.'"

He immediately regretted telling her. 

"I...yes, sir," Phasma agreed and he wondered what questions were lurking in her mind about her mercurial leader, now.

It was time he got back to the last Jedi.


	12. Answers

As he gathered his things, there was a signal at the door. It was Hux. The general had a servant bring in a box of documents. 

"These are some of the documents we found, Supreme Leader," Hux said. "Wouldn't it be easier to just study in the library, or get a team to filter through all this for you?” 

Kylo looked at Hux. By an odd twist of circumstance, they were like brothers to one another, now. Jealousy, competition and all. Snoke had enjoyed playing them off one another, but they’d had to rely on each other a few times, as well. 

Today, Hux seemed content with him.

To Hux, Kylo was finally assuming his responsibilities, even if he had radical ideas about hierarchy in the ranks. 

"There is too much noise in the library; in my quarters, there are less...distractions. I've only got hunches of what I'm looking for, Hux," he dismissed the general’s suggestion. 

" _ Fewer _ distractions,” Hux corrected, ever the stickler for rules and regulations, “What  _ are _ you looking for, sir?"

_ Do I trust him or kill him?  _ Kylo wondered.  _ At least he's stopped trying to have me killed. _

His stance must have changed, for Hux swallowed and took a step back. 

"There are hints at where I could find more Jedi texts," he finally said, deciding to take the gamble and allow his ‘brother’ to live, for now. "There is another, more ancient presence in the Force. I would better understand what it is before deciding on how to use it." 

"An ancient presence in the Force, Sir?" Hux inquired, sounding fascinated. Snoke's infrequent but very public punishments of Hux, as well as their own altercations since Snoke's death had given the man a better taste of the power of the Force. 

Ben knew the man's fear of chaos made him understand the Force as something that tied the universe together in an orderly manner. 

Then the fallen Jedi had a sudden flash of understanding. The Force had little to do with Order; neither the Light nor the Dark resolved themselves into an ultimate way to organize the Universe. In fact, one side's Order was the other side's Chaos. The First Order's mission was to bring peace to a chaotic Galaxy, not so different from the abnegation the Light side demanded. 

"Sir?" Hux prompted him.

"Hux, what is the mission of the First Order?" Kylo asked, curious to hear the man’s private views, isolated from all the propaganda and pageantry he so often relied upon before others.

"To bring Order to the Galaxy, Sir. When the Empire fell, there was horrible chaos for years before brave and organized people picked up the pieces and made sense of the Galaxy, at last," the general responded, unsure what was behind this sudden interest.

Hux had terrible memories of those days: his family had lost everything. Then the First Order had picked him up, and he had worked tirelessly to get to his position now. By then, however, he had become an orphan. 

"And what will happen once we have conquered all and imposed our order everywhere?" Kylo nudged.

"Well...Peace? I suppose?" Hux said, perplexed.

"Do you believe that, Hux? Peace, with no resistance anywhere? What is the first line of the Coda of the Sith?" he posed, daring to challenge the man and the dogma he espoused.

"I'm not sure, something about...Passion?"

"'Peace is a lie, there is only Passion.' The Sith thrive on chaos, Hux. And what is the first line of the Coda of the Jedi?" Kylo pushed further.

"What, sir, I don't understand you -" Hux broke off, struggling with this line of questioning.

"'There is no emotion, there is Peace'. Which one is closer to our goal, Hux? What do we want?"

Hux was close to panic and could only stutter. 

"I, I- "

"We want  _ Peace _ , Hux. That is what I'm studying. War is chaos, and there will always be resistance to our Order because we try to impose peace through war. Somewhere between the Sith and the Jedi, between Chaos and Order, there is a way: I will find it. I will determine a way to move forward.”

Kylo knew his rival as well as Hux knew him; he knew that the man’s love of esthetic beauty was repressed by his fear of loss, even as he appreciated flawed and fragile things, collecting them in secret.

“I will forge a way for you and your bright red hair, and your collection of potteries of all cultures, of all colors, to have a place in the Order. You, and  _ other _ people of  _ other _ colors." 

Hux was stunned. Chaos, violent, endless chaos was what they had wrought on the Galaxy under Snoke. He remembered the destruction of the Hosnian system. It had been a terrible day. Their show of force had only disorganized the galaxy further. 

Peace was the end goal of the First Order, but it ran against the philosophy of the Sith. The Jedi were a closer philosophy, but they had failed too, denying the truest expression of the nature of life: emotion. 

Kylo resumed his explication:  "This Ancient Being is a Sith Master- the  _ last _ Sith Master. It shared visions with me. Its ultimate goal is Darkness, meaning to put out all light. I don't mean metaphorically, Hux. I mean snuffing out all the stars.”

The scar-faced, dark man took a breath before facing his closest general:

“Think about this before you betray me. You and I go way back. Now, I will leave you again. I think... for a time longer than usual. Keep this ship running tight until I return."

"Sir -" All blood had drained from Armitage Hux's face, making it even paler, if possible. 

He paused, brow furrowed in thought. 

"Kylo..." he said, "I will think on this." 

**

Kylo took his command shuttle this time. He could stash more supplies on it and a crew of five fit in it comfortably. It had a tiny galley with amenities, and he could even sleep in it comfortably: it had a retractable bed, instead of just reclining the pilot seat. It wasn't as agile as the  _ Silencer _ , but it was smaller than the  _ Falcon _ . He told his subordinates he was going to Ahch-to. There was no harm in them knowing, now; Rey had communicated the coordinates to him.

When he found Temple Island, the Darksider thought of his Uncle Luke. He saw the little huts Rey had slept in during her short stay with the old Jedi Master. There were a few blankets left in one of them - Rey's? He picked one up and brought it near his face. it had an old man's smell and he had a flash of his uncle, bitter and defeated, full of feelings of guilt and failure. 

The duel on Crait had been a diversion, but it had also been a message: "I failed you, Ben," his old Jedi Master had admitted. In truth, they'd failed each other.

He finally found the hut where Rey had stayed, but nothing remained of her inside the blasted ruin. The caretakers were rebuilding it, as it had been blown apart by Luke’s fear. He remembered their first encounters through the Force; how things between them had changed since then. She had grown stronger and stronger with every exchange. 

_ And me? _

He thought he'd grown weaker. That was what Snoke had told him, but Snoke had lied to him, he'd lied about forging that bond. He had been unpleasantly surprised by their union in that doomed throne room. 

Fighting alongside Rey had made Ben stronger in the Force, even if he kept to the Dark Side's way of using it. What was that connection, he wondered, and where did it come from? He had not found much information about it through his studies, yet. 

He walked up to the pinnacle, found the beautiful mosaic inlaid in the cavern at the top, illuminated by the twin suns through the opening where the meditation stone was. The mosaic was equal parts Light and Dark, he saw with fascination.

* _ That is the Prime Jedi. I saw it everyday for five years and never realized the meaning of it until Rey came here for hope _ .* 

It was Luke, standing before him, pale and bathed in ethereal light. Ben felt he could let the Light in him breathe again. 

"Uncle...Master..." he started.

"Don't call me that,” the old man chided gently. “I taught you how to fight and move things around and trick stupid people; I didn't teach you a damn thing about hope when that was what you needed the most."

Ben shook his head,"Uncle, I'm sorry about the Training Temple, I didn't mean to..."

The Ghost raised his hand to stop him: 

"You didn't, in fact. Sorry to pop your bubble, kid, but you weren't strong enough back then to blow the whole thing up yourself,” Luke told him with a hint of humor before he sobered, meeting his nephew’s gaze intently. “That was Sith intervention. Snoke played us all like violins. That was a good move, by the way, tricking him like that with the saber. Genius. I can imagine the look on his face."

"Oh, it was priceless," Ben Solo confirmed, letting out a small laugh that surprised even him. Then his face grew somber as he replayed the whole scene in his mind.

"She didn't take my hand,” he said, trying to articulate the rage he’d wielded so recklessly that day. “I felt so betrayed. I was so angry. I was so ... desperate." 

"She's a strong one, that Rey. Dangerous,” Luke nodded, then quirked a whimsical eyebrow at Ben. “Did you know she almost killed me? Come to think of it, she asked for  _ my _ help, and I refused her." 

A reflective pause fell between them as both men contemplated how they had treated the Scavenger. 

"There's a cave below. She must have told you about it,” his uncle commented, eyeing him speculatively. “Maybe you should go - see it for yourself."

"Uncle! What are you asking?” Ben demanded, astounded by Luke’s suggestion, given all that had passed between them. “Haven't I learned enough from the Dark Side?"

"Not alone. She's here."

And the Old Jedi Master was gone. 

*

The Sacred Tree had burned to ashes, leaving a hole like a crater. The Last Jedi was standing in front of the blackened stump, small and pale and straight as a sapling, her hair bound in that triple-bun style she preferred. Ben’s heart leapt in his chest at the sight of her and it was all he could do not to run to embrace her. 

When he reached her they stood side-by-side, looking at the ruin in silence. 

"Good thing I stole the books," she finally spoke. 

"You  _ stole _ them?" he exclaimed, turning to stare at her, then feeling the corner of his mouth lift upwards a little in amusement. Of course… a scavenger  _ would  _ scavenge. 

"I told myself I was borrowing them, but I'm not giving them back,” Rey explained, clearly feeling justified. “Besides, they would have been destroyed if I'd left them here, obviously.” She turned to him. “How was your...trip?"

"You know most of it. It went surprisingly well,” Ben looked down for a moment before raising his eyes to meet her hazel gaze steadily. “I only killed three people, and managed to placate my officers well enough they don't seem to be hunting me down… yet. I met some… people, or maybe I should say I saw them for the first time. 

“I brought some more texts with me and some of Snoke's personal notes that were salvaged from the _ Supremacy. _ Oh, and I read the content of that artifact I brought with me."

"You did, what was it?" Rey asked, perking up in excitement.

"You won't believe this,” he told her, feeling his spirits rise at the simple joy sharing this with her brought him. “It’s a love letter from my Grandfather to my Grandmother." 

" _ Really _ !" She laughed. "What?"

He flared up. 

"There was a lot of emotion in that letter. It was very moving!" He flushed as he defended the sentiments shared between his grandparents. 

"Oh Maker, I'm sorry!” Rey apologized quickly. “I didn't know, I just ... I can't imagine the Evil Sith Lord writing  _ love letters _ !"

"Well... he  _ did _ !" Kylo Ren grumped, then stomped away, back to his command ship. 

Rey watched him go, following his receding form thoughtfully.  _ Ben Solo is only a part of him, _ she thought to herself.  _ The Ren will always be there, protecting him like armor _ . 

She liked him that way, liked that fire that was always just below the surface like banked coals; she liked its heat. 

*

The crew of the  _ Falcon  _ supped together, laughing and talking loudly. The weather was warm even when the suns set. Ben had finally come over to sit with them, ill-at-ease and quiet. Poe had found a bottle of some blue liquor, and they passed it around. The fighter-pilot started recounting stories from his youth, eventually remembering Ben as a ‘dour boy’ - another dour boy, like himself, honestly - who visited with them on occasion, when Senator Organa dragged him along during summer vacation. Had Solo's son not already been contaminated, they might have been friends. 

Ben thought he should remember him. Poe Dameron was of an age with him, after all, but so much of his teens had been taken up with the forces struggling to gain control of him, he could barely remember any of it except a desire for death to take him.

Then he suddenly remembered one clear afternoon, when they had visited with the Damerons. The boys had hidden in the cockpit of Poe's mother, Shara Bey's ship and shared a spice stick. The boys had talked about their hopes to become the best pilots of the Galaxy. They'd both become a little disillusioned with the Republic, even then. 

Poe would later join the Resistance. Ben would become Kylo Ren. 

"You resisted better than most, I was impressed," Ben suddenly told Poe. It took a moment for Dameron to catch that the remark referred to the mind-probe he had endured under Kylo Ren’s interrogation; it was meant as a compliment, maybe even an apology.

"Yeah, well ... I tried. Thanks?" the captain shrugged it off uncomfortably.

Finn and Ben told a few tales of life with the First Order’s Galactic Navy, their contrasting points of view fascinating to the rest of the crew, and revealing to each other. The tension between them was diffusing into a better understanding. Ben certainly seemed to gain much from the exchange. 

“I’m lucky you survived our fight,” he finally told the former Stormtrooper - another indirect apology.

*

Rose and Rey were getting a little tipsy on Poe’s pilfered liquor, the short mechanic working up the courage to make her intentions clear to Finn. They were all a little drunk by the end of the evening. Hearing the dreamy-eyed couple recount their trip to Canto Bight, and the flight of the fathiers, made everyone laugh. They were moments of malaise, as well. It was true that many industries stood to lose much if the war ended. 

Rey decided to talk about her own experience of that day: Snoke's demise. She told of how Ben and her had worked together to defeat the Praetorian Guards after he’d tricked his old Master. Things had soured after that, but for a few minutes, their energies had synced and fed off each other, in perfect balance. When she looked over at Ben, it was clear to everyone what the young woman considered the most important part of that fateful day. 

Finn broke the tension, laughing as he imagined the surprise on the old monster's face. He almost reached out to slap his ex-boss' shoulder, thought better of it, and slapped Rey's, instead. 

Even Chewie was beginning to relax, but he mostly listened to the other’s stories, not ready to reminisce about the past so much. He did tell the tale of the Kessel Run, to everyone's delight. That was far enough in the past to be safe to talk about. 

When Ben stood up to go to his shuttle, everyone wished him goodnight, and he surprised himself by responding in kind. Rey offered to accompany him - to get the texts, she explained. Going up the gangplank he was thankful she had no memory of the last time she had been on this shuttle; he let her in, to the storage. The box was bigger than she was willing to carry, so she decided she would bring them tomorrow, instead. 

Then she stood near the entrance way, hesitant, not quite willing to leave, just yet. 

Ben had already removed his cloak and boots when he realized she was waiting. He turned to take her in - that tough beauty that glowed with an inner radiance that entranced him. 

He walked over to her. 

And then he leaned down and kissed her.


	13. Time to make peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The time for pleasure is now

When he leaned forward and kissed her again, she became aware of how alone together they were. The others were in the  _ Falcon _ . 

There was  _ time _ . 

He drew her close. She felt the strength of his arms embrace her. She felt the strength of his chest against her breast. Her arms reached up and her fingers tangled in his dark crown of hair. Her lips parted and his tongue found them and then found her tongue and there was a dance between them she hadn’t imagined could be even sweeter than the kiss on Kef Bir. His hand traveled up her back and twined in her hair and he pulled out the cords holding it in place, releasing a small brown cascade down her back and her musk into the air about them. He broke the kiss and buried his face in her neck, breathing her in. She tilted her head and he kissed her ear, kissed her neck. Suddenly, he wrapped his arms around her, then straightened as he picked her up and started to carry her to...

She stiffened, a tremble taking her. He stopped walking. 

“What,” he asked. A flush of fear rushed up inside her and he knew immediately. “Oh.”

He had forgotten she was a maiden. And now that she trembled in his arms, when they were so close to completion, he was a bit shaken himself. He held her, her feet not touching the floor, effortlessly she was so lithe. Her heart beat against his chest like a caught bird. His own heart beat like a great drum inside him. He looked at her. Her eyes were closed, trying to compose herself. He was reminded of their battle in the snowy woods on StarKiller base. _ I was such a fool to want to break her, _ he thought. The passion he felt for her had already been sown, he realized. He just had not known it then. Or maybe he did, and fear had made him defend himself against its power.

She saw in her mind's eye how he had seen her then: an equal, a threat, a promise. She remembered the very first time she saw his face. The face of a youth, but a face untainted by lust.  _ Of all the times he could have hurt me, he never wanted to _ , she thought. She opened her eyes and his own almond eyes just looked at her, waiting, and he smiled. A dozen butterflies flew out of her ribcage. That smile. She smiled back.

Inside he was roiling like a tempest but he could not take her if she didn't give herself. He put her back down. 

"No. No, I want ... I want to." She reached up to kiss him again and he picked her up once more, this time reaching the berth. It wasn't very wide, nor very comfy, but it had a firm mattress and sheets and pillows for the weary traveler. He laid her there full length and then he climbed in beside her and lay on his side, leaning close to kiss her some more. She pushed off her boots, and they fell to the floor with a soft thud. She turned to him and realized he was waiting for her to touch him; this was not a dream or the Force-bond. She would have to be bolder to get what she wanted. She put a hand on his chest; inside she could feel his heart beat strong and sure. She reached under his shirt, felt firm muscle and downy hair and the bumpy lines of his scars. Now he shook a bit, with delight, his eyes half-close with the novelty of being caressed for the first time in years. Their Force-bond interactions had prepared them for intimacy; but this reality was infinitely better.

She tugged at his shirt and he gladly took it off. The angry, unbalanced boy was ceding to this confident man. She was reminded of their age difference, and blushed at her inexperience. And then she blushed when she felt him remember a time, years ago, when he had been the eager and awkward one like her now and her wonder pleased him. She leaned towards him and kissed his breast and smelled his smell and started to free herself of her wraps. She traced and kissed his scars, soft, soft kisses until she found a nipple and he gave a small gasp. He untied her sash, reached inside her blouse and carefully cupped a breast, rubbing the nipple and feeling it harden against his palm. Her hand slid down his stomach and reached his belt. She unfastened it, but then moved past the fly and reached his thigh, feeling the muscle there, before moving back up, slowly, knowing what was just inches away but not sure of herself yet. Finally she lay her hand over him and felt him through the fabric and froze. This was in the real world. 

He had work to do before they could go there, and he knew what to do. This was a moment out of time. He kissed her again. Deeply. Teasingly. Until she was breathless. He kissed her chin, her jawline, her throat. He took one of her hands and put it in his hair so she could play in it. He took her other hand and kissed her palm and their fingers intertwined while he moved slowly down to her right breast. His hand cupped the left one and then he lightly kissed the right breast before taking the nipple in his mouth. 

She moaned. Her left hand traveled up and down his neck and his shoulders. Her right hand traveled down her stomach to reach her mound which was pulsing in sync with his suckling, and gave it a squeeze. She knew where he was going and wouldn't stop him.  _ Oh Maker, no, I won't stop him. _ He left her breast and moved to her stomach, past her stomach, to the hem of her pants. He smelled her and breathed into the space between the hem and her stomach. She started to rock gently in the small bed. Her breathing was coming faster. She pulled at his hair and twined her fingers in it. Her right hand finally started to push her pants down and he helped her the rest of the way. Then she closed her legs again, her little bush propped up, shy. 

Seeing this, he took her hand and laid on his back, pulling her on top of him. Her breasts fell on his chest and they were skin to skin, they were together in the flesh, now. He kissed the hand he held, sucking her fingers and let it free again to roam about his body. She was naked now, but not him. He reached into her soft hair and pulled gently at it, so it fell across his shoulders. He put his arms around her and caressed her shoulders, her back, tracing her spine down to her firm buttocks. Her weight was on him and she felt him hard against her stomach. They kissed some more, their tongues dancing. Her hand moved down his body again and after a hesitation, she pushed it down into his breeches. She explored the length of him; gingerly she cupped his balls, he throbbed and she felt the strength of him, pushing against her wrist. She measured his girth, and remembered their last exchange like this.

What a crazy thing the Force is.  _ This was never in any Jedi text _ , he laughed. She gave a nervous giggle. Now she wanted to see him "again". So they pushed his pants down and he lay in all his glory. She caressed him now, emboldened. He was at her mercy, and he was starting to grunt somewhat and writhe a little. He stopped her hand, "not yet," he told her. 

She climbed on top of him. " _ Ah! _ " he gave a surprised breath when she sat right on him, feeling her little hair on his shaft. Then she moved and he felt her split open and she was  _ lush. _

She bent over to kiss him some more, her vulva rubbing against his shaft and things became difficult for him. She reached down and picked him up and tried to take him into her. His cockhead bumped against her entrance but she was still scared: he felt her pain. "You don't have to hurt yourself," he said, voice low and tender, "let me finish what I started." She looked at him, pale... and acquiesced. 

He picked her up and flipped her on her back, laying between her legs. He shifted his body down and lay his head on top of her, letting his hair brush against her thighs and stomach. He smelled that sweet sweet smell of her, and almost creamed himself right there and then.  _ Only a little farther to go _ , he admonished himself. He kissed her thigh, moving in closer to where leg stops and hair begins then gave it a lick and she lifted clear off the bed, moaning. He nudged in closer until he found and kissed her rosebud and reached with his tongue and this time she opened up to him, pungent and sweet. He lapped all that he could and suckled at her and she cried out in surprised pleasure. He brought up his thumb and this time felt her for real as he pushed past her barrier into a welcoming warmth. Watching her, sensing her through the bond, he took his time and worked her with his mouth until she arched back and cried out, throbbing as she reached climax under his tongue. 

He almost joined her right there,from the intensity of the feedback. He breathed deeply to calm himself. He vaguely remembered what sex was, but this was something else. This meeting was fulfilling. It was meaningful. He removed his thumb. Her eyes flew open. She looked at him. She grabbed a handful of hair and pulled him up to her, ready for whatever he would give her now.

He looked into her waiting eyes and realized how much his taking her was irrevocable. Absolute. It meant giving himself at the same time. It meant a commitment greater than his submission to the Dark had ever been. 

He pushed himself back up to level with her, kissing her along the way, placing himself between her spread legs, his heart beating wildly. He grabbed himself and put his cockhead right at her entrance, rubbing up and down, making her squirm with the added stimulation, until he was coated in their juices. He waited again, though he wondered where he found the strength. She was swaying beneath him, and then her hand reached for him and she pulled him in. He felt her pulse against him and gave a slight push, spreading her open, resistance giving way. She tightened against him, her breath coming fast, and he paused. Then she relaxed. He inched forward. He paused again. She was gasping when she pushed against him, asking for more, mewling loudly. Finally he slid all the way into her with a slight grunt. She was so tight, clenched around him. 

Her  _ Beautiful Monster, _ this strange body, was finally within her own body. He covered her with kisses, then he started rocking her gently, slowly. He stopped a moment, took her hand and made her put it on herself, to be sure she would join him in this rapture. She was not shy about it. It didn't take very long before she arched back again, moaning in waves of pleasure, her legs locking behind him and pushing him further into her. She throbbed against him and this time, with a sob and a great shudder, he gave himself into her.


	14. Within Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey's turn. The Dyad. The Mirror

It started raining, waking Rey up. Even after months of hearing it, the patter still woke her up. To her it was the sound of life. Also it made her want to pee. Ben was fast asleep. She slipped from under the covers. When she came back, she sat beside him and looked at him in the dim light. His head was crowned in a dark tangled mane. Peaceful, his face seemed that of a boy even younger than her, as if it had returned to a time before the Knights of Ren, before he had turned to a hardened Jedi-hunter. She contemplated the sheer size of him, tall and muscular like an ox. So much strength in one body and yet he had been so so gentle. She was sore, but it was more of a reminder of the heat of him than actual discomfort. She covered herself with his cloak and headed for the comms. 

Rose answered: "Rey? Is everything alright?"

"Um... yeah. I think I'll stay here if you don't mind. With the rain and all." 

Silence. Then:

"Sure Rey. We won't leave without you. Good night." 

"Good night Rose."

Walking back to the little room, she saw he'd gotten up himself. She climbed back into the bed, where he'd left his warmth. When he came back, he seemed all gangly and shy and sat beside her to better look at her. She felt joy rise within him and when she looked at him, he gave her a wide smile. She smiled back and sat up, wanting to touch his face, and kiss his eyes, his nose, his lips, and hold him again. Finally, she climbed into his lap. She soon felt his heat rise between them, and her own body responded almost immediately. His hands came around her, reaching into her hair, caressing her back, under her hips, raising her so he wouldn't be so hunched over. She in turn rubbed her face into his throat, letting her hands run all over his body, reading and learning his every scar like a story-book.

And then she felt the Force start to connect them. Inside him, she felt the violence of his passion for her, a thing she did not know, recede before the soothing calm of tenderness; a light that had the color of hope. She raised herself to where she could kiss his eyes, gently tracing the great scar she had put there; that scar that was like a door she had carved into his soul. She buried her face in his crown, smelling the dark musk there, and he kissed her between her breasts leaning in to hear her heart beat. When she lowered her hips again, she guided him into her. It was easier this time. As she learned to move with him, she looked into his eyes and she saw a softness there she felt sure had not been expressed in years. 

He closed his eyes and he saw them in his mind's eye.

To his Light, there was her Darkness, a thing of fury and anger and hunger that was held in check by a shield of courage and compassion. She had survived all these years by the grace of its violence, and it told him many things about himself he had never really delved into.

He took her hand and lay back into the bed, exposing his stomach to her, letting her take more of himself inside her. Sat upon him, she could move as she needed. He filled her up. She caressed his great chest when she leaned forward to kiss him, while his now free hands moved all over her, waking parts of her she had ignored until now. She pushed up and leaned back to caress and cup his testes and stroke his thighs and the change of angle put him right near that place inside her. Her mouth rounded into a surprised  _ Oh _ . She rocked against it, and very quickly the slow they were dancing became more frantic. He was tensing under her, feeling how close he was to her pleasure, and his hand reached over to her mons, dipped his thumb into their junction to gather moisture and then gave her clit just a hint of a circular rub.

Now she had found a rhythm, riding her passion like a wild beast across a wavy landscape of delight at breakneck speed, climbing hillocks of pleasure, feeling each ripple along the planes of her body, his girth reaching to the very edge of pain, withdrawal leaving an exquisite void she filled again and again. His hands fell to his side and when she looked at him, a pink flush was blooming on his chest, his head thrown back and his eyes closed in utter surrender. 

When she leaned back again and placed him right  _ there _ , his next throb brought her to her climax. The world went white and she heard and felt him gasp and moan and heave under her, his hands reaching her thighs to raise her slightly then push her down to complete his own deliverance. A torrent rushed in to fill her. She rode him out, like the great waves on Kef Bir, then fell forward onto his chest, still twitching with pleasure, each twitch echoed by his own. 

After a few breaths, he reached dazedly over to the side and they pulled the blanket over them so she would stay with him, keeping inside her a little longer. The air about them was filled with the sweet smell of sweat and rut. Finally, she shakily slid from on top of him and curled up against his side, and they fell asleep again.

When morning came she woke and the bond seemed to stay open between them, if muted. She looked at him: he was at peace with her. Complete. Like she felt with him. She remembered something. 

"Force Dyad", she told him when he opened his eyes. 

" _ Maker _ ! Are you  _ sure _ ?" But then he knew the answer already. "I can find confirmation in the Sith texts." He got up, washed himself up in the little basin and got dressed. He put water to heat for her. She saw the student in him already trying to figure what book the information would be in.

After she dressed, she decided she would eat her breakfast outside in the sunlight, watching the rolling waves. The water dunes reminded her of Jakku. On the horizon she saw storm clouds starting to darken the sky. She made her way back to the Falcon.

Rose was up, finishing her own cup of stimu-caf. When the girls saw each other, they both blushed. "Where's Ben?"

"Studying. Where's Finn?"

"Exhausted." They both laughed at that. 

Poe came out, grumpy and rumpled. The girls laughed again, and he joined them good-heartedly. Lightning flashed in the East. They didn't have much time. 

They saw Ben almost running towards them, his dark mane blowing in the wind, a simple shirt, not quite laced up, covering a wide frame, mid-calf slacks and soft canvas boots giving him the care-free look of youth; the books seemed tiny in his big hands. He joined them soon, breathless in his excitement to tell them: he had found some reference to the concept of the Force Dyad. Together, he told them, Rey and him become a complete union of both sides of the Force, like a — 

"Like the Prime Jedi," Rey added. 

"—like the Prime Jedi!" exclaimed Ben. He hadn't thought of it that way. "They have another term for it in the Sith texts. But listen to this: 'Their bond, even if it shares similarities with that of the Master-Apprentice bond with regards to communications, also confers abilities that transcend physical space. Together, the Dyad work as one, becoming more powerful than any Master.' There are references to works that may still be in the Great Sith Temple on Coruscant."

"This is how we defeat the Tor Valum, together as a Dyad," she stated excitedly.

“Not just a Dyad, Rey,  _ The Dyad _ . It was prophesied.” Ben Solo suddenly straightened, as if bracing for the weight of Destiny. "Rey," he said, "are you willing to forego becoming a Jedi if we destroy the last Sith Master?" 

**

They packed up and prepared to leave. They needed to know more about what they were getting into, so they would stop on Coruscant, see what they would find there. Just as they were ready to leave, Ben remembered Master Luke's advice: to visit the Mirror Cave. He told them.

"You'll have to go together," Finn had a hunch. The mood of the team had shifted, a mix of resignation and hope; their coming together like an inescapable destiny. "We'll go on ahead to Coruscant. Stop by the base to give our report?" He looked at Poe.

"Yes, that's what we'll do. We'll have news of what the First Order is doing when we next meet."

*

After the Falcon took off, Rey and Ben walked to the entrance of the Dark Nexus. Dread emanated from it like poison miasma. He looked at the seaweed-encircled dark hole in the ledge: "How do we get in?" he asked.

"Oh we plunge in. There's an underground lake. It's not very deep, I was able to cross it and reach the ledge."

He stripped off his clothes. After a moment, she did the same. They found an overhang and stashed their clothing and their sabers under it to keep them dry. Naked in the cold, they clasped hands and jumped in. 

There was just enough daylight to find the ledge, but as they moved forward, that light grew dimmer. Rey suddenly felt an inspiration. She cupped her hand before her and concentrated on feeling the Force around her. Then she concentrated Light into a wisp and it appeared in her palm. Ben gasped. "Where did you learn that?" 

"I think I learned it from you," she answered, and Ben's memory took him back years, back to the Jedi training grounds. He saw himself sitting in a circle with his classmates, each with a Light mote hovering over their palm. "Very good," Master Luke, praising them. Sudden grief washed over him. They had reached the Dark Mirror. 

Rey looked at herself in the Mirror. A new image appeared: she was powerful, more powerful than Snoke had been, more than the boy beside her. She wielded a double-bladed, blood-red light-staff, and all bowed before her in terror. Fire coursed through her, re-igniting trauma and fueling it into a thirst for revenge. She would re-visit Jakku and dismember Unkar Plutt; she would find her parents who had abandoned her and throw them into the salt pits of hell. She would take over the First Order and crush the insignificant Resistance. She would find the Tor Valum, and give him the burning remains of the Galaxy, and he would accept her as a Daughter. She turned to the miserable boy beside her.

Ben saw the burning bodies of his comrades. He saw the burning bodies of hundreds of villagers on dozens of planets. They cried out to him, trying to reach him as he made his way to a Dark Throne. In his way, stood his father, and when he reached him his father raised his hand to caress his son's face, tears streaming down his face, asking "Why?" He fell to the side and Ben couldn't catch him. Then further along the way, his mother stood, but she too fell to the wayside. As he made his way forward, hands clutched at his robes and dragged at him, slowing him. He pushed on towards the throne, walking over Lor San Tekka’s body, then Snoke's, then Hux’s. All grasped at him, pleading with him, and he could not shake them off. He kept hearing Darth Vader's voice: "You are weak, you are too weak." He felt great tears open up inside him and he started to sob. Beside the throne, he saw a lithe, dark figure: Rey, mocking him. On the throne he saw the last Sith Master: the Tor Valum. It had a triangular head with many eyes, perched atop a long flexible neck. Its body was colorless, as was everything around it in this hellscape. Even the fires burned in shades of gray. The Tor looked at him curiously, its mouth forming a disgusted rictus. It turned to the Dark Rey beside it whispering "End him. Consume him" and she reached her hand toward him.

There was a flicker of recognition on her face. 

He let a great wave of hope swell in him. He offered his own hand, and this time, she took it. The Mirror split in half; the Dark Cave expelled them.


	15. The Knights of Ren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not everyone is fooled.

They were cast into the sea, out into a little cove choked with seaweed. They had to half-swim half-walk a little ways to reach the bottom of stone steps, making their way up with fingers and toes freezing as the wind was starting to pick up. The sun was gone, the rain was not far off. Goosebumps crawled up and down their skin. As they neared the entrance of the cave where they had stashed their things, Ben stopped suddenly. "They're here," he announced. "Hurry." 

"Who?"

"The Ren."

They ran the rest of the way up, the presence of the Knights becoming more and more oppressive, but when they burst upon the landing they saw they had not run fast enough: the Knights surrounded the opening to the Mirror Cave, all but one peering down into its unfathomable depth. 

Ap'lek was looking right at them. 

"So this is where you hide, ‘Master’." He saw Rey coming up behind Kylo, just as naked as he was. "What's this? You've betrayed us for some _woman_?" he roared. Ben Solo stepped in front of Rey, protectively, until he felt a flash of fire behind him. She moved forward, stepping lightly, crouching, shoulders bunched, ready to pounce. 

"I am not _some woman_!" she yelled as she Force-pushed him right into the cave's entrance hole. She called her light-saber to her; it whipped out from under their clothing, flew into her hand. 

Ben called his own. It came, if unwillingly. _Oh no you don't,_ he thought, and let Rage fill him. He lit it, then counted the Ren, _where's Kuruk? Hiding, of course._ Kuruk was nicknamed ‘ _the Sniper_ ’, he would be concealed in some high ground somewhere, getting ready to snipe. 

The remainder spaced themselves out, keeping them against the edge of the cliff. 

"That's a scrawny one you have there,” called out Vicrul - who fancied himself ‘ _the Reaper’_ \- “though I'm sure I can make my way into her after we're done with you. What do you say, boys? Solo brought us a parting gift." 

There was a tremor in Rey's soul, but she said nothing. It stoked her anger. She tried to Force-push another enemy, but he resisted. All the Knights of Ren were Force-sensitive, if their command of it was brutish; Kylo Ren was the only one really trained in the ways, by Jedi and by Sith. This would be a hard fight nonetheless. They were not like Snoke’s drone-like Red Guard. He knew what they would do to Rey if they caught her. 

Kylo moved into position to attack Trudgen; Rey followed his cue. This time, instead of pushing him, she pulled his feet out from under him. Kylo leaped on him and with a lunge of his saber, pinned him to the ground. _*One,_ * he voiced in her head, _*find the Sniper*_. He gathered the other two on him. She ran past them, to higher ground. 

Without his armor, he felt strangely free. He was sure-footed and his vision was unhindered. His paleness made him appear bigger than he was; he felt their uncertainty before him. Cardo detached one of his grenades and threw it at him. He deflected it down the hole. It exploded inside the cave, and there was a scream within. Ap'lek? He hoped so. He swiped at Cardo, cut off his arm, temporarily disabling him. 

There was no holding back. He’d won every challenge to his title for six years, always holding back to not kill them. Now he would kill anyone who wouldn’t submit. The Knights of Ren had doubted him since the killing of Snoke. Discovering Rey had changed Kylo, but the Knights had not changed. Their treason had merely been delayed by circumstance, though Kuruk’s near-death during _the Madness_ had certainly given them pause, but killing Ushar... that had set them off. 

Rey was hunting among the rocks, her white body making her very visible. Suddenly, lightning flashed and the announced torrential rain began to fall. It would hinder his vision, she thought, but probably not much. This type had other means to see their prey. She hid behind rocks and closed her eyes, feeling for a heart beat. 

Kylo Ren faced Vicrul Ren. 

Vicrul was circling around Kylo, taunting him: "I've always known women made you weak, Solo, just like your father. You should have joined our little parties, instead of playing the damsel," a swipe, "you would have hardened yourself to the snakes' charms, then." A faint. "Now look at you! Do you think you love her? Is that it? _Are you in love,_ Ben Solo?" An overhead swipe Ben had trouble parrying. "Do you think she'll love you back?" 

With her eyes closed, Rey saw nearly still shapes. One was still in the hole. The other was off to her left. She opened her eyes. He was slowly making his way down again, to where he would get a line-of-sight on them. He had a nasty looking blast-rifle in his hand, raising it to take aim at Ben. 

A roar came from her as she called the side of the mountain down on top of him, crushing him. * _Two*._

Vicrul was still talking, trying to enrage Kylo into making a mistake, but Kylo had tasted blood and the disdain he felt from his former disciples only made him cold-blooded. Unconstrained and agile, he stunned him long enough to leap over his enemy and land behind him, then run him through. * _Three*_.

Cardo still had one good arm; he pulled on another grenade. There was a detonation. Ben was blown back, down into the hole. He hit the water, concussion deafening him. Almost stunned, he swam forward, reaching the wall and stilled himself: Ap'lek was in here with him. He listened for him. His ears were ringing. 

Rey came down into the landing and marched toward the broken Ren she saw lying on the ground. He looked up at her, a vision of skin and muscle, small breasts and full pubis, the secret to life exposed before him when she reached for his head and snapped his neck. * _Four*_.

Ben controlled his breathing. There was a way out, if he swam down into the tunnel towards the sea. With the storm clouds above, no light made it into the cavern. He was in near pitch darkness, _which way?_

A wisp of light appeared, floating down into the cavern. Surprised, he blinked, before he realized he could grasp it and direct it. He floated it along the damp walls. Strange, ancient patterns appeared. Things glimmered. Things reflected the pale blue glow. He saw the ledge. Ap'lek lay there, unmoving; he saw his helm. _*I'm okay*_ , he sent her, _*I don't know that the last one’s dead.*_

_*Leave him*_ was the answer. 

_*I'd rather be sure.*_ He threaded water as silently as he could towards the ledge, straining to see any movement. He got up on the ledge. It was like approaching a snake barely guessed at in the grass. He sent the mote over to where he thought it was. 

There was nothing. Just the mask. _*Rey, he's not in here, he made it out!*_ He looked around the cave, and then the wisp. He put his mind to breathing more Light into it, blowing it up until it illuminated the whole cavern.

Something he had not felt in a long time ignited in his breast: wonder. 

Across the lake he saw the darkened tunnel. He took a deep breath and plunged into the cold water to make his way out. Once out, he coughed and after looking around ran back up the stairs again. Rey had his things and his saber and he half-dressed swiftly, pulling pants and boots on. They had to reach the last of the Knights of Ren before he took off and alerted the First Order. They ran across the little island and saw the Night Buzzard take off. 

_"Oh no you don't!"_ Rey commanded. She planted her feet and raised her hand towards the ship. It slowed. 

_By the Maker! Is she actually doing that!?_ Kylo Ren was awestruck. 

"Shut up and help me, for fucks' sake!" she yelled at him. He snapped his hand up, pulling at the Force that held the ship together. He felt she was holding the Light of it, so he reached for the Dark matter. For the space of three long breaths, the strain was terrible, then their effort combined like two strands that found a way to weave together into a strong bond and the ship fell out of the sky - its reactors burned out. It crashed into the storm-tossed sea. They ran to where they could see it sink. After a few minutes, they made their way back to the Shuttle. 

*

"You think he's dead?" 

Silence. 

"Yeah me neither. He's got nowhere to go. We could leave him stranded here." 

"We could." Ben imagined a wounded Ap’lek raging at the moon in the First Temple of the Jedi. Maybe Luke would taunt him?

With his command shuttle locked down tight, they were in relative safety. They washed and changed into dry clothes. Rey put on a few of Ben things and cinched them together. She looked ridiculous and all the more endearing to him. Whenever he looked at her his heart would start up, though the black reminded him of his phantasm of a Dark Rey. They spoke of their visions while they dressed:

"So he managed to plant that illusion into your mind?"

"You remember what I asked you in the throne room on _the Supremacy_. He must have picked up on that."

"Careful what you wish for." 

"Indeed. What do you wish for?"

"I wish you hadn't come after us on Crait."

"I...I wasn't ready yet." 

So many things would have gone differently if he'd gone her way instead of refusing her Light. All of it, different. Now he wielded the power of the First Order, but it was a double-edged sword; it could slice him open at any time. He thought of the vision she had been granted. 

"What about you? He made you a better offer than me."

"There is no better offer than you," she said softly. He fell mute. His heart sang. He wasn't ready for that either. 

"We saw him, at least," she stated.

He blinked. "What?"

"We saw the monster. And he must have seen us. "

Outside, the storm showed no signs of abating. Night had fallen. They lifted off into space, not certain they had killed the last of the Knights of Ren.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing has slowed. I'm editing the way I wrote the dialogues so they're easier to follow. Also I am studying Coruscant to stay in canon as much as possible, adapting my Master Plan according to what I find. Most of the story is clear in my head, but a character-driven story means that sometimes, things get away from me. Like that last Ren did.


	16. Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the way to Coruscant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't want to be bogged down in geography and detail, lest the plot escapes me. I will edit this as my studies of the subject matter progress. Meanwhile, enjoy the story.

The crew of the Millenium Falcon had decided to touch base before going on to Coruscant. Reconnaissance from the First Order had a new color to it. Their guerilla excursions concluded with more surrenders than before, and the prisoners were released after they gave up information. Many fled back to their home worlds. Some stayed on and were now accepted. Their ranks were swelling; the tides were reversing. Leia inquired after Rey when she saw them. 

"Rey stayed behind with him." Between Ben and Kylo, it was still hard to know how to call their old enemy. "They had something to do with a cave. They'll meet us on Coruscant." said Poe. He hesitated, then added: "Leia, they've become...intimate."

"They have some Force-bond, yes."

"No, I mean, _physically_ intimate."

Leia looked at him a moment, considering the implications. "I see. I guess that was to be expected." 

"And that Force-bond is even more important than we imagined, if I understand. They called it a ‘Force-Dyad’."

"That's something I don't know about. And how does this... relationship... affect them?"

"It makes them stronger when they're together, much stronger. But I don't know how much of his good behavior is due to his just wanting to be with her, or if he's really seen the Light. If something happened to Rey, I don't know that he wouldn't just go crazy and destroy everything around him. Same with her; Rey has a Dark Side, you know. She smolders with it."

Leia had a flash of her and Han, the way she had had to reign him in sometimes, and sometimes he her. "They've come together for the right reason then: balance." 

_Is my son in love? Is he loved in return?_ So much was riding on this relationship.

"Check with Research and with Comms for information about Coruscant. Holdo and I went on a trip to level 4 once, did you know that? We found a kind of Museum there. About humans. It was ... quite a trip." 

***

They took turns piloting the Shuttle to Coruscant. It was an ugly thing, made to look like a bat, the kind of bat that drinks blood from its terrified victims. 

So much of his power came from his appearance: this ship, his mask, his voice modulator, his cloak, the way he held himself. And yet. He discovered new Power with Rey beside him. They had dispatched the Knights of Ren while stark naked. They had stopped and crashed a transport in mid-flight. They had defeated Snoke and his Praetorian guards - in his own throne room - together. There were things hinted at in the texts they had not even tried yet. And then there were things that put them at odds. The only way they could stay together was if they found - and kept - a balance in the Force. 

He had let the Light back in, and she had a reservoir of Darkness she could tap into when she was threatened. Were they balanced this way? How much control did he have over his Kylo Ren persona? _Just Kylo, now._ How much of Dark Rey could he stand to see before it overwhelmed him? _She always overwhelms me_ , he thought. The Jedi were obsessed with self-control, the Sith with control over others. He had learned the Sith ways but had had no formal training to become one. _I was always just someone's apprentice,_ he thought. Even the title of Master of the Knights of Ren had been bequeathed to him more than actually earned. He had grabbed power over the First Order by treachery. He had done things to try to prove his valor to monsters, he had-

"Teach me" she demanded.

He startled. She'd come up behind him without warning him, sneaking up on him like an-

In her hand, she held Sith texts. He shook his head, _no_.

"Remember you offered to teach me? Teach me!"

"Rey, this is Sith use of the Force, it's radical Dark knowledge, you shouldn't- "

"I shouldn't learn Dark knowledge? You're the one telling me that?" She was getting angry now. "Do you think I'm some delicate flower?" 

He stood up, stared down at her. Some ugly beast in him rose to defend him from this creature that threatened to engulf him: "what do you _want_ from me?"

Rey froze. _How much of him do I know? How much of him have I let myself see?_ She took a breath and moved forward. _I called him a monster, twice. And he believed he was._ He stood there, un-moving. This is a dangerous moment, she realized. She felt a part of her quickly losing patience. Pressure mounted inside the little cabin. She locked gazes with him. ‘ _Passion gives me Strength_ ’ she growled, the words appearing unbidden in her mind. She moved forward into him, reached for the lever and stopped the ship. She put her hand on his flank, felt the muscle there. "Show me," she said. They floated up off the floor.

"I'll _show_ you," he snarled.

They fought. They wrestled with each other, each trying to overcome the other, but without hitting, without using the Force, like some unspoken rule between them. He was stronger, but disadvantaged in near-zero-G; she was fast and flexible. She would twist out of his grip, and climb around behind him. As they got sweaty with exertion, things became slippery. After a moment of pushing and pulling they made it to the little lounge, where the kissing started. The biting too. Clothes started to come off. He got a good grip on her britches and ripped them off and she grunted, wickedly helping him along. He picked her up and she straddled him, pulling hard at his hair with one hand, finding him and pushing him inside her with the other, her legs locking behind him. He gripped her hips, hard enough to leave bruises and thrust inside her, unable to retain even a modicum of control. He had to contain _and_ fill this woman all at the same time, making her the central part of himself. After a few frantic minutes of animalistic rutting, she raked at his back and he slowed his pace down, waves of hot and cold travelling up and down his body. 

His mind opened to her and the violent Passion she had only had a glimpse of before flooded out of him and crashed into her own angry desire to _take_ someone who could take _her_. He slowed even more and each thrust seemed to reach deeper inside her and each pull made her twitch around the void it left. At some point she managed to hold him in and keep him with her and when their climax came, it seemed to fill the entire space around them. She embraced him and their hearts beat together while he held on to her for dear life. Doubt left him. They formed something together. Something greater than just two people sharing a space in time. 

"I'll be with you always," he promised, knowing no other woman could take him so completely. 

"I believe you," she answered, "but to be with you, I have to be just as strong. Now teach me."

_*_

“The lightsaber you used… the other day?” Ben inquired carefully.

“It’s Leia’s. She lent it to me... until I can fix the Skywalker saber.” 

“Hmm.” He had forgotten his mother had one. She’d never finished her Jedi training. He’d wondered about that for a few years... the reasons given by Luke were vague. “Would you let me have a look at the... the broken one?” 

The thing had definitely split in half. He rummaged around the shuttle toolbox - any ship worth anything had a decent one on board - and brought out some wiring, some electronics and a soldering iron. They sat together at the little galley counter, knees touching. While Ben assessed the salvageability of the broken saber, he made Rey examine the working one with her Force sensitivity. 

The housing could be soldered together until she had a new one fabricated. The wiring obviously would have to be reworked. The kyber crystal was intact... but resentful. Ben had to soothe it and make it all kinds of promises. It was clear it wouldn’t work with him until he fixed his own crazy crimson blade. It could hear his kyber’s torment, from where it hung right near it at his belt. The bled, cracked crystal suffered, had suffered for six years. 

* _Let me kill the Tor Valum first,_ * he pleaded with his Grandfather’s kyber.

Rey sat in deep meditation, guided at first by Ben Solo, the Fallen Jedi, into seeing Leia’s lightsaber’s assembly in her mind’s eye. Most of it was understandable to her. 

She set upon the task of soldering the housing back into one piece, while Ben gathered the rest of the needed parts. Between the first-class toolbox inventory of the First Order command shuttle and Rey’s ability to re-purpose any piece of electronics, they had all the parts they needed. The grip cylinder would be forever scarred with an ugly swollen seam circling it, and seeing that, Ben and Rey looked at each other in uncomfortable silence. Ben briefly touched the scar on his face. It seemed the Skywalkers were forever condemned to be torn apart. 

Hours had passed already. They had to get some rest before the final assembly and testing, and hopefully they would have it fixed before reaching Coruscant. 

*

They lay in bed.

They lay in bed _together_. 

His heart was marking time like one of those old-fashioned mechanical clocks he’d found in a crate of contraband his father had been hoping to sell to some rich young nostalgia collector. 

He was alive and in bed with a woman. And this woman was with him. Five - was it only five months ago? - he’d been trying to kill himself to please a monster. To become the monster. Now he was letting the girl who had bested him twice - three times? - trace connections and paths along the beauty marks and moles on the skin of his chest because she was still sore from all their - 

“Ben,” she turned sleepily to him, “why is your lightsaber red, and why is it so crazy?”

Now he had to live to kill another, more powerful monster.

“Because I cracked the kyber crystal when I bled it,” he murmured into her hair, his heart laid bare because lying to her was unthinkable. 

“How did you crack it? What did you do to it?” She was stirring awake now, her inquisitive mind ever wondering at all that the universe had to offer, now that she was - almost - free to roam it at will. 

Ben Solo was Kylo Ren, and Rey wanted to know him better. He thought for a long time before he found words to explain, to at least begin to explain, the steps he had taken on the path to Darkness. 

“When I joined the Knights of Ren, my kyber crystal rejected me.” She shifted onto her stomach to look at him, chin propped up on his chest and hazel eyes attentive. 

“It can do that?” She made a discouraged expression, and for a moment, Ben thought he’d disappointed her. “I know nothing,” she murmured, bitterly, “and they think I’m a Jedi. Even Leia wants to believe it.” 

Ben Solo knew what those kinds of expectations were. How the voice in his head had told him he could never meet them. 

“Shhh,” he soothed, “You don’t have to be a Jedi. You just have to help me kill the last Sith.”

“So your kyber rejected you and turned red, and that's why it’s all spitting and shit?” She was frowning with curiosity. “Wait... you said you _bled_ it?”

A tremble started inside him. His muscles spasmed, and emotions - frustration and shame - started rising in him. 

“Rey,” he warned her, “I’d rather not talk about it.” 

“Why not?” she asked him, undeterred. “It sounds like something important, something I should know.”

Ten years of studying the Force as a Jedi, and six as a Darksider and he was lying in bed with his natural enemy who was _also_ his natural ally. 

In the interrogation room, he could have cracked her and bled her. Instead, some very primal Light in him had recognized her. He had refrained from doing so. Now, she had given herself to him freely.

He thought of the virginal blood that had washed off him when he’d showered the next morning. 

“Rey…” Words caught in his throat. The level of responsibility was astounding, and he thought he heard Master Luke chuckle in his head. 

“Rey,” he tried again, pushing the words out rapidly before they blocked in his throat again, “a natural Kyber crystal won’t serve the Dark side. A kyber has to be forced into submission to a Darksider. I had to … to break its spirit, I guess you could say, to make it obey me again. That process is called bleeding, because you literally crush it in your hand and it cuts so deeply it bleeds. And it took so much Force to do it that it cracked.”

And as he said it, he realized how the same thing _had_ happened to _him_ under Snoke’s subjugation. 

He felt raw, his breathing ragged. 

Rey let out a soft “Oh,” and curled up to him again, holding him close, head on his chest. 

For a long while, they lay there while Kylo let silent tears fall onto the pillows. Then Rey shifted a bit and asked softly: “Can it be fixed?”

Kylo thought for a moment before he answered: “Yes. It can be healed. But it’s a long, patient process.”

Just before he drifted off to sleep he heard her whisper “I can be patient.”

*

It took five attempts and some fiddling but by the time they made it to their destination, Anakin Skywalker’s Lightsaber was whole again. 

***

The ships met in space before agreeing on a spot to land on Coruscant. The once-capital planet had lost much of its former glory: anyone who had any means to do so having eventually left. They found a trashy space-port and bribed the owner into silence. Ben Solo had brought a little fortune with him; he was not about to stomp about playing Supreme Leader here. They found some brown leathers and tan linens to fit him and some grey woolens for Rey, after she explained her own clothes had been "destroyed by the rain", though their numerous scrapes and bruises betrayed their passions. Dubious stares made way for amused resignation when they saw Rey look positively triumphant. 

Solo’s son looked the part, and Poe wondered what Leia would think if she saw him now. They found a close-by food-bar and sat to take in the mood of the locals, while they exchanged news of what had happened while they were apart. 

"Incredible! You brought a ship down with the Force !?" Poe, Rose and Finn stared at the couple in disbelief. The wookie growled in appreciation. 

"It took the two of us, but we did it. It was _hard_." Rey explained. 

"So now there's maybe this one guy left there all alone? He must be pissed!" Finn looked at Poe. "We should send some Resistance troops there to finish the job." 

"Send a squadron. He's dangerous."

"You think a lot of yourself, Ben Solo, killing three."

"I had Rey with me. She killed two !" He beamed proudly. They laughed at his silly face. He darkened, but then laughed too. 

Poe looked at Kylo Ren. Being with all of them was doing as much good for him as being with Rey. Now that the man's mind had been freed, and the initial grief and shock had worn off, he was growing into someone else, someone whole. 

"The Resistance have been picking up more deserters, now that we recognize them." Poe told him. "They don't all join us, if that worries you. Many just want to go back to their home-worlds."

"They would. I would too," said Ben. 

"I wouldn't," said Rey. 

*

When they had a moment of intimacy, Rose spoke with Rey: "While on base, I thought of you and brought this," she gave Rey a subdermal contraceptive pellet. "You just push the tube against your arm around here, hit this button, and you're safe." 

Rey looked at the thing in her hand, then pocketed it. "Thank you", she answered. "I'll think on it."

"Think about it?" Rose was surprised by Rey's reaction. "I can help you put it in, if you want, it's pretty straight forward. I have mine, see?" She showed Rey a little bump on her arm.

"Yes, thank you Rose. I know what it's for. I'll think on it." 

"We're at war, Rey."

"We've always been at war, Rose. We may be at war for years more. And I don't know how long we'll be together."

"You think he'll leave you? That's bad."

"No, I don't think he'll leave me. I don't think he could. Nor me, him. I just don't know if we'll both survive the coming battle. I would want to keep a part of him alive with me." 

Rose thought of that. Then her face became very serious and she said:

"Then I have one word of advice: if the seed takes, don't tell him until after you're done killing the _Tor Valum_ and are safe again. If you died, the loss of both of you would kill him. Or drive him insane."

*

Finn was looking at the storm-trooper guards across the way from them. Their white armor was yellowed. They pushed people around with a dejected air about them. One took his helmet off in the streets, wiped his sweaty face and put it back on. A possibility started to form in his mind. He spoke with Poe about it. Poe nodded.

***

Back on The Steadfast, Hux was paging through the book of Sufi poetry Kylo Ren had left behind. He had convinced Phasma to let him into the Supreme Leader's rooms once she had recuperated the Ren Ap'Lek on Ahch-To. Only luck had made it possible to isolate and see the Ren himself before anyone else. 

So Kylo Ren was in love after all, and apparently that love was returned. Together, the two had defeated the Knights of Ren, and dropped the Night Buzzard from the Sky. They had fought and slain Snoke together, that was clear now. They had parted after that, for reasons obscure, thought obviously, their quarrel had opened things in Kylo's heart and mind. The angry boy in the terrible mask was gone. A man had come forward. A man who trusted him with a Vision of the future that Hux could not shake. Peace. 

Unity respectful of difference. 

Phasma guarded the door. Ap'lek Ren was a disfigured, enraged man who talked nothing but of seeking revenge on his former Master. Hux read the verse over his thumb in the book he held.

_"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I will meet you there."_

"Think about this before you betray me," Kylo had asked. 

He thought of his collection of delicate potteries he had picked up over the years. Some had come from simple shops, but he appreciated their hand-made craftsmanship. If the cultures that had shaped them were to disappear, they could become priceless artifacts, he knew. But if one broke, it would be irreplaceable. 

He looked at the Ren before him. He was a reminder of a Kylo of violent, mostly fruitless impulses. "Thank you for your service," he told the Ren, then killed him with a blaster shot through the heart. He picked up Phasma on his way out: "The Knights of Ren are no more. This one had become a threat to our Supreme Leader." The Captain remained quiet for a bit, then she said: "Long live the Supreme Leader Kylo." 

***

There were many conflicting histories about this planet, some going back eons, calling it the "Birthplace of Humanity". Both the Republic and The First Order had preferred to abandon it after the Fall of the Empire. The Jedi and the Sith, who had alternately ruled this planet, had been all but decimated; if any survived today, they were hiding, though they knew at least one Sith presence was still out there, shaping the present. That one had been strangely quiet. 

As they walked the streets on their way to the Jedi Temple, they were aware of the misery around them. Once great buildings were dirty and decrepit. People walked hurriedly, wearing cheap, ill-fitting clothing. There was trash everywhere. Parts of the city were lost in a hazy yellow mist.

Storm troopers slumped at their posts. Poe greeted them, asking them for news. Finn greeted the people. Rose looked at the architecture trying to puzzle out the systems that connected the top and the underground part of the city. She entered a shop, then beckoned Rey to come in with her. They came out a few minutes later with sweet sticky treats for all of them. Ben looked at Rey's lithe figure, at her laughing, clumsily carrying the colourful treats. _Every little thing she does is magic_ , he thought, and it must have shown on his face, because both girls blushed when they saw him. They also knew where to rent the services of an air taxi. 

When the taxi came, it was obvious they wouldn't all fit. Poe and Finn decided to stay top-side while the rest would go below. "What will you do up here?" asked Ben while giving them a handful of FO credits. 

"Don't tell the Supreme Leader about this," answered Finn half-jokingly, "but we are going to foment a rebellion." 

Ben startled upright. For a moment a whole range of emotions chased each other on his face. 

Finn swore softly. Poe punched him in the arm. 

"You may gather and share information, Finn, but be aware I have been working on softening the First Order's touch on the People we would rule." They all looked at him with various degrees of rebellion on their faces. "The reforms I propose will take time, but will be less bloody than an all-out Revolution." 

" _What_ reforms?" Finn bit out. 

"Inclusion. Education. Respect." 

They looked at him as if seeing him for the first time.


	17. The Descent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A walk in the park

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is very little information about the Sith Shrine beneath the Jedi Temple, its level depth, its architecture. I'll have to wing it. Suspend your disbelief, or leave info in the comments, thank you.

The taxi agreed to take them down into the space delimiting the great Jedi Temple from the rest of the city. He would take them down to level 2000, no lower than that, and leave them near another taxi zone. He spoke at length about how the city had changed over the course of his lifetime. The Empire's fall, the First Order's rise. Same old, same old. Except the New Republic had left the Capital. "When the First Order started out, we thought it was part of the Republic, so we didn't question it. We should have known. Any power structure centered on military might is bound to be oppressive." Ben Solo did his best to keep Kylo silent, but it was a struggle; Rey held his hand. 

"But Order is necessary!" he finally blurted out, "People need a structure!"

The driver looked at him via the rear-view mirror. "Most people can live like that, within a structure; dull or simple people who lead simple lives. They grow up, find work, find a spouse, build a house, make some kids, have hobbies and die in that structure and life just goes on like that. But there are people who can never find their place in it, yes?"

"Thieves and murderers and rapists, yeah."

"And poets and artists and inventors, and people who are just different from the masses. Which one are you?"

Chewie grunted and Rose laughed. Ben felt color rise to his cheeks but managed to keep quiet.

"You have to have a place for people like that. You have to let them roam free: they're the ones who move the Galaxy forward. Everyone else is just, well, maintenance. Besides, if everyone fit neatly into the little boxes the First Order wants to put them in, there wouldn't _be_ a Resistance, would there? You wouldn't be here." It was a strange thing, to be tagged as part of the Resistance, even if indirectly. 

"I wouldn't be here…” mused Solo. “What do you think of the Supreme Leader Kylo Ren?"

Rey tensed. Rose quieted. Ben braced himself.

"The Supreme Leader? They changed him, didn't they? I don't know, no one knows: he's got that mask on all the time. Like his storm-troopers: they all wear masks like they're some sort of Droids. You can tell they're all human under there, but they hide it. They hide their fears and their shame under that disguise, but what does it say to us? It says they don't care about us. They don't care about each other either. If they did, they would show their faces. They would show their humanity. 

“Anyway, this is your stop." 

They got out. Chewie gave him a slap on the back. "<You did well, son, but you should get out more.>" 

_Reforms_ , Supreme Leader Kylo thought. 

***

On The Steadfast, General Pryde finally heard about the Knight's of Ren's demise. Kylo Ren had dispatched them himself; the reason was obscure. Hux had killed the last one, here on this ship. With the Supreme Leader still on his mysterious quest, it was hard to tell how the power dynamics had shifted. Hux was obviously loyal to him, but why had the Ren turned against their Master? He'd thought of them as a pack of rabid wolves, but they had been useful to the First Order. Now Kylo Ren - just Kylo, now - didn't have that impressive personal guard anymore. Did that mean that their Supreme Leader was out there, roaming the Galaxy by himself? 

"HUX!" he yelled, " _where_ is our Supreme Leader of the First Order?"

Hux startled: "He was last seen on Ahch-To, _General_ , he destroyed some Jedi Shrine there."

"I know where he _was_ , I want to know where he _is_ ! If our Supreme Leader can just go off _gallivanting_ wherever and whenever he feels like it, we don't _need_ him, do we? We _need_ someone who will stay at his post and steer this ship through the storms ahead. Find him!"

***

Poe and Finn were buying gifts at shops, drinking red tea in tea houses, making their way into some of the lower levels to get a feel of the relations between people. They saw a stormtrooper pick up a tin of food and give it to the woman who had dropped it from her bag. They saw another sharing a baccy stick with a cab driver. They saw one shove a slow man across the street, calling him by his name, the man answering "Yea, yea, I know." The Troopers and the People had reached an understanding. A balance. Dividing them would be moot. But uniting them could work. And then they heard interesting conversations:

"I hear they're planning some reforms."

"Right, something about letting conscripts keep their trades?"

"That would be alright. You seen how some of them shoot? Scary."

"Haha. I hear they're planning on recruiting non-humans. What do you think about that?"

"I don't know. Maybe in some of the outer systems? Wouldn't it be harder to tell who the enemy is then?"

"As long as they wear the uniform, I guess we could tell."

Poe and Finn looked at each other: Kylo Ren had told them the truth! But then they heard something else:

"I don't know. How will these people know who's the Master Species?"

The two Resistance fighters looked at each other: there was a lot of work to do to implement those "Reforms". 

**

As they made progress, Ben could feel the Force from the spire around which the Sith Shrine, then the Jedi Temple, had been built. That concentration point of Force was called a Vergence, a nexus, he knew. 

_*I came here a few times, as a youth, with Palpatine. I didn't know he was Darth Sidious, then.*_ Anakin spoke to him _,_ tentatively at first, as if seeking permission for the intrusion. Ben silently acquiesced and his new mentor continued. _*He used my fear of abandonment against me. My passion for my wife. My grief. He promised me Power, but really he just weakened me for his own goals.*_

 _*He did. That's what they do, don't they? Use our fears. Use our need for... for love.*_ He stumbled on that. 

_*You've grown close, you and her, your... friend?*_

_*Yes. Very.*_ Ben mused, he thought of kissing his beautiful Rey. He thought of holding her close and the space she filled when she was in his arms. He thought of their minds touching so that they knew each other. He thought of the feel of being inside her, how they shared that. That trust she had in him. 

_*There's still a gap between you. A small thing, but important. Tell her.*_

_*She knows.*_

_*Does she?*_

* 

Rey was feeling the oppression of being sunk thousands of feet of concrete below the open sky. There was no sun here. Ever. And there were more levels below than what they had come down already. She hoped to find a way into where they were going soon. 

_*I only heard about this place. Never came here.*_ Luke _._

 _*I was wondering when we'd speak again,*_ Rey greeted him, _*you see, I was right about him.*_

_*Not at that moment, you weren't. It took more than a simple touch of hands to bring him around. You know the Jedi pledge celibacy?*_

_*They do?*_ She felt stricken _._

_*Forget I said that. The Jedi are dead. The Sith are dead. You two are founding something else.*_

_*What? What did we come here for, if not for Jedi or Sith knowledge?*_

_*Knowledge is knowledge. It's what you do with it that counts*_

The group stopped before a small service door. Rose and Rey set to work on the control panel. Chewbacca and Ben kept a lookout. Ben took a deep breath and turned to his Uncle: "How are you holding up, Chewie?"

"<I miss him sometimes, still. He was a scoundrel, but he didn't deserve that,>" the Wookie sighed.

"I- I don't know what I was thinking. I _wasn't_ thinking. I'd given up. I thought killing him would somehow kill me."

"<Something else was killing you.>" Chewie looked at his friend's son and killer, gauging him before continuing. "<You remember how I met your father, how I was locked in that cage. They would throw men at me, thieves or just randoms they didn't like. It was ‘eat them or die’. I killed I don't know how many, before your father was thrown in, and by some grace of the Maker, I didn't kill him too. He spoke to me as a person, and at that moment, I could hear him over the blood pounding in my head. We helped each other. But it was sheer luck.>"

"I'm sorry I killed him, Chewie. I wish I could go back in time and fix this."

"<You too were locked in a cage, son. To you, it felt like it was you or him. Rey unlocked the door for you.>"

"Rey unlocked the door. It was Mom who pulled me out."

"<Well then, you know what you have to do. You have to take care of them both.>"

"I'll take care of you too, Uncle. I promise." 

"It's open guys, let's go in!" announced Rose and they passed inside the abandoned Jedi temple. Ben and Rey both felt the Force radiating through the structure, it was so intense they could feel a direction to move towards it, like one feels the heat of a fire before them. They walked a few corridors and down some stairs. Ben had remembered how to make some light and they used that to light their way, though it took more effort than expected to maintain it. "It’s easier to break things" he said as he passed it to Rey. They came to a stronger barrier, finally. Beyond it would be the remains of the Sith Shrine. 

"Once we find the passage through, it will be our turn to unlock it," announced Rey. "I hope the schematics we found are enough."

They walked for minutes around it; the barrier wall was round, smooth on the outside, mostly alabaster white; there were dark lines veining it like marble. A dark light seemed to emanate from those veins, not quite breaking through, just under the surface. High arches held up the outer wall circling it. 

The feel of the Force was different here. Ben felt an energy that pulsed inside his head; it seemed to fill him with whispers of all his fears, reminding him of all his frustrations, exciting him to anger, promising victories over all his enemies. His vision became-blood tinged. The little light he held started to turn red, then dim.

He stopped. Blurrily he saw Rey stumble. Chewie reaching to help her up. Rose was looking at him, a deep frown on her face. She was saying something, yelling something about a hand. He looked down, she was holding out her hand. Why is she holding out her hand, he wondered, when we're at war, when we're enemies? He remembered something, he looked up at Chewie, Chewie was carrying Rey. Why is he carrying her? Did he hurt her? Is he taking her away? He reached out, but he was going blind. A hand grasped his and pulled him forward and he nearly fell. Then the hand put something in his hand : it was Rey's hand. She was hurting, he felt it immediately. 

He didn't know what to do: he tried probing into her mind but it was shielded from him. Encased in something smooth and black and plastic like tar that seemed to be covering her, choking her. He became frantic, going over the surface of the thick casing. Something whispered to him that he could smash it, break it open like a shell - and for a moment, he considered it. Then he put his mind over the black casing again, feeling its hard surface, realizing there were lines in it, joints, or seams, and he scrabbled over it, trying to find one that was big enough he could slip something into it and pry it open. 

It seemed to take a long time before he found one, but he did. Then he concentrated: he made his inner Light into a diamond again, and pushed against that one little crack, scratched at and wedged in it until he felt it give bit by bit and the whole thing came apart and she could breathe again. He collapsed to the floor. When he could open his eyes again, there was a door in the barrier before them. 

What have we done? he wondered.

**

Poe and Finn had gathered a small crowd around them. They had been led to a run-down tavern, where they were invited to take turns telling about the defections and the reforms shaking up the First Order. "Soldiers are leaving the First Order because they can't reconcile what the Order demands of them and how they feel about it. And the leaders of the First Order are starting to understand this. They're looking for ways to understand the people of the galaxy better."

"What are you saying? That we should join the First Order, or that we should quit it?" 

"We're saying both. If you welcome those that quit, more will quit and the First Order will be forced to adapt its policy. If you join, you will be part of the change. They're talking about recognizing trades instead of just breaking everyone into their mold."

"But that part is still a way off. Don't rush to the recruiting office just yet."

***

On another Plane, an ancient presence felt a door open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What have I done ?


	18. The Door

Hux looked at the boy that was dusting his collection of potteries. The boy had a light touch; he would pick each one up carefully and put it back when it and the shelf was clean, turning it just so the light would illuminate a pattern in the glaze, or the main design would be centered. He remembered vaguely being told this boy had volunteered to be his personal caretaker. He also remembered the boy had risked much to save the collection from destruction on the Supremacy. 

"Liam, is it?"

"Yes Sir, I'm almost done, Sir."

"It's alright. You appreciate this collection, do you?"

"Yes sir. If that's ok with you, Sir. "

"It is. Where do you come from, Liam?"

"Amqui, Sir."

"I see. Is that why you like this vase so much then?" 

Hux pointed at a piece in the display. It was short and squat with herds of gazelles running around its surface. They seemed to be ready to sprint right off into the air around them. It was a piece from Amqui. 

"Yes sir. My mother made it. I - I'm sorry Sir, I shouldn't have said that." The boy stammered, frightened. 

"It's alright.” Hux soothed awkwardly, “your mother made it. Did she teach you?"

The boy Liam looked stricken. Armitage realized the boy must have been orphaned then taken by the First Order. The village had probably been razed. 

"She did, Sir,” he confided hesitantly, “But I haven't been able to continue since." 

An idea started to form in the General’s head. The Supremacy was never going to be operational again, but the Finalizer was nearly ready. He needed his own ship again. General Pryde would never approve of what he had in mind. 

"Thank you, son. That will be all."

_ Kylo _ , Hux thought to himself,  _ you have to come back soon.  _

***

They stood before the opening. None of them wanted to go in; even Rose and Chewbacca, who weren't Force-sensitive, were loath to go in. Even Ben, who was trained to deal with that power, felt dread. "How did you unlock it?" Rose asked, "you didn't even look at the diagrams." 

"I think it was more of a puzzle. It required a sacrifice, but I managed to... "hack it", I guess." 

Rey was still reeling from the assault. "That was... very difficult" she said, "thank you." 

"Well, now that we've opened this thing, we have to go in and get what we came for," Rose stated, pragmatic as always.

They moved forward into a circular room that was partly carved out of the spire, partly the barrier they were passing through. The inside was draped in what looked like red vines or organic tissue growing along the dark walls, reaching to a vault hidden in the darkness above them. There was nothing in the room save for a pedestal in the middle of it; it held a hedron of some sort. The floor was a mosaic in the distinct symbol of the Sith Order: a dark sun inside a hexagon. It was obvious what they had to do: touch the artifact. 

"Do we touch it together? Or just one of us?" 

"I don't know that either of us should." 

"We have to make a decision, Rey."

"Hold hands first, then touch it together?" suggested Rose.

They clasped hands. Breathing deeply, they let themselves feel past their bodies, past their emotions, to map the extent of their respective mastery of the Force. Where Rey had a hard nut of Dark Fury to her, she had never shied away from it, knowing the rich loam of her compassion was the greater part of herself. As for Ben, the diamond light inside him seemed tiny compared to the dark cloak of his fears and shame. 

He struggled with himself, wanting to hide that from her, knowing he shouldn't. 

Finally he let her reach in and part the dark curtains to walk into his soul. She walked around inside the killing fields in his mind, seeing massacres and murders, and hearing the voice in his head urging him on to more cruelty, savoring his sacrifices. 

To Snoke, Kylo had been the knife and the altar upon which he had been revered as the Cruel Father. These things he had done... and those were the facts of it. In comparison, the few dozen stormtroopers Rey had shot or cut down were mere drops of blood. 

Then he saw the seed of her Darkness: a deal cut by Plutt with a traveller when Rey was just coming into her womanhood. He saw - almost felt - what had gone down: her hopeless struggle, her sobs as each protection was ripped away, the weight and the smell of the man crushing her, the beginning of excruciating pain as she reached around her grasping desperately for anything that could be used to defend herself. He felt the dagger slap into her hand - it must have been her first use of the Force - and then the instinct to stab the stinking man, right into the throat, into the jugular. A spray of hot blood had covered her face, and she had pushed him off finally, bouncing to her feet, spitting blood at the thug that was dying on the ground before her. 

Ben felt her triumph. 

Plutt had kept the sour deal quiet, and never tried to sell her again.

"You have much to atone for," she told him, shaking him from the vision that had been so close to dreams he had had of her, after their interaction on Starkiller base.

He nodded, and then he placed their hands on the multi-faceted Hedron. 

Their vision moved up and outside the Temple, and they saw the construction of it, but in reverse: they were travelling backwards in time, and saw level after level of the city come undone. Hundreds of years rolled back, mountaintops appeared again, whole wars unreeled in the space of heartbeats. They saw waves of immigrations and exodus flow in and out like tides. Anchored in the landscape, constant through all the bustle of civilizations, was the Spire. It was neither Dark nor Light, but reflected the light of the sun when it shone, or the stars when the sun was on the other side of the planet. 

There appeared a small gathering of people at the base of the spire. They wore multicolored garb, sat in a circle, meditating. They spoke a creed:

> _ There is no Light without Darkness _
> 
> _ Through Passion, I gain Focus _
> 
> _ Through Knowledge, I gain Power _
> 
> _ Through Serenity, I gain Strength _
> 
> _ Through Victory, I gain Harmony _
> 
> _ There is only the Force _

The Dyad was released from the vision. When they exited the room, they saw the barrier seal shut again. "What did you see, did you see the Tor Valum?” asked Rose. “Did you find the Sith knowledge we need?"

"No. The Spire here was never really Sith nor Jedi. Politics made it swing one way or the other. We found another way."

"What?"

"The Prime Jedi. The Grey Jedi. Balance."

**

They found their way out onto a different level then they had started on. As they walked to find a lift back to the top, they realized they had attracted unsavory attention. "<Get your blasters out,>" said Chewie.

"We can just push them over the ledge," said Ben.

"Or maybe you can order them to surrender, Supreme Leader,” hissed Rose, ”take that red Saber out and tell the whole parsec you're running around Coruscant accompanied by a Wookie" 

Ben took his blaster out. "I'll see what they want." he walked forwards toward the little gang with a bit of a swagger. "Hey guys, what can we do for you- " 

It didn't go well. Ben went down quickly, stabbed with a vibro-blade to the gut. Chewie managed to shoot two thugs down. Rose shot a third after a few tries. While Rey...

Rey had one by the throat. She was choking the life out of him. Slowly. Until Chewie shot him dead. She snapped out of her sudden rage and ran to Ben, lying in a widening pool of blood. She picked him up in her lap. She closed her eyes and laid her hand on his wound, breathing deeply. Rose darted to find a cab. 

Ben looked around him.  _ This is how fools die, he thought, stabbed by thugs in a back alley. I thought I had a bigger part in this story. _ He reached his hand to her face, looking at her. 

"Let me see your eyes, "he managed to say. "Rey..."

"Shut up." 

He felt Light come to bathe him in its soothing coolness.  _ That's odd, I didn't think I would die in the Light _ , he wondered. The jabbing pain in his side started to subside. There were waves travelling his body, busily working around the wound. Rey had that intense look of concentration on her face. 

And then the pain was gone. He sat up. She fell back, Chewie just catching her head.

The ride back up seemed to take hours. "<Han Solo got us as much  _ in  _ trouble as out of it,>" Chewie berated Solo's so,. "<Don't get cocky with thugs.>"

Rey was recovering from her effort. 

They made it back to their ships to wait for Finn and Poe. Rey took Ben's hand and led him to his ugly bat shuttle. Rose looked at them disappear into the ship. There was something very deliberate about the way she took Ben with her, she thought. 

Instinct guided Rey. She started removing her clothes almost before shutting the craft door. He was caught off guard, the Visions of the City and his near death still in his mind. "I don't think this is a good time," he protested. "We'll do it fast, then." She kissed him - a hungry kiss - her hands feeling for him, caressing him deliberately, at the same time dropping the rest of her garb. 

There was no stopping her, and though he felt rushed, she enticed him in a way he found he couldn't resist, and before long had lifted her over his hips and carried her out of view. There was none of the angry, violent passion of the other day, there was laughter and some clumsiness, but mostly there was an eagerness to get him inside her, to get him to climax quickly - and he surprised even himself with the ease with which he obliged her. She kept him within her as long as she could, letting him go only when the comms chimed and he stumbled to the console to answer it. 

It was Poe. "Are you guys alright?" he inquired.

"Yeah, we're just..." He was a little breathless. And confused. 

"Ok. Come out Ben Solo, we should talk. Guy talk."

They met outside, making up an excuse about getting supplies, then finally just announcing they were getting a beer. 

When they were far enough to be out of earshot, Poe stated, bluntly: "You two have not been using any kind of "protection" have you?" It wasn't a question. 

Ben felt blood rush to his face. "I don't see how this is any of your business." 

"It's not so much my business as it is yours. She could get pregnant with you. You should know that." 

Shock. Sudden understanding. Wonder. Doubt. Fear. Joy. Then it started all over again. His face must have been a circus parade, the way Poe looked at him, reading each emotion in turn. 

"You have a say in that. I have a spare prev-kit if you want. At least have a talk with her."

"I will." A life for a life, he suddenly thought. 

They eventually had their beer, exchanging information for the coming conflicts. Neither seemed to have made much progress. 

"It's time I get back to my command," said Ben, recovering his Kylo persona. "Take Rey with you. Go to General Organa. We'll meet again before a fortnight." 

"General Organa would like to see her son, I think."

"Tell her... her son misses her."

He left within the hour. 

***

_ Grandfather _ , he prayed on his way to The Steadfast,  _ give me strength for the task ahead. Give me wisdom to tell my enemies from my allies.  _

When Kylo stepped out of his shuttle, General Pryde and General Hux were both there to meet with him. He carried his helmet on his hip, he left his cloak on the ship; he was tired of hiding. Both men saw the steel look in his eye, the set of his jaw; their posture became, if possible, even more rigid. He marched passed them, giving commands on the way to his quarters: meeting in the Great Meeting room in an hour, full reports, like last time. There would be troop inspections in six hours, on the main flight deck. He would shower first.

He closed the door. He sighed in relief. He'd made it to his quarters without getting stabbed by his own staff. After his shower, he called for Captain Phasma. When she arrived, she handed a book to him: it was the book of Sufi poetry. "General Hux would like to thank you for the loan, Sir" she told him. "He found the book... informative."

"Thank you, Captain. Anything else?" Kylo managed not to stare at her, gauging her disposition. 

"There have been movements in the troops, Sir. Some desertions, but no re-programming. Or rather, they were re-assignments, some outside the ranks, into the service trades. All on all, a net loss. But General Pryde and Major Ollenna have drafted a recruiting plan as you demanded." She kept her mien professionally cool. 

"Good. How is morale, Captain Phasma?" It was a question rarely asked under Snoke’s command. It was just as unexpected from the Jedi-Killer. It revealed a new interest for the troops of the First Order...for their health. 

"Morale is up in general, Sir. But some of the shock troops are itching for a fight. Sir..." She hesitated. "After the last missed assault on the Resistance, there are suspicions of a spy in our ranks."

"Ah? Don't we always have a spy or two in our ranks?"

"Sir, Intelligence thinks he could be fairly high up the command chain."

"Really? How high up?" 

"In the Officer ranks." He saw the tall, chrome-armored woman  _ brace  _ herself. 

He looked at her. He didn't feel like making a scene. "Relax, Captain. A lot has happened in the last six months, wouldn't you agree?" She nodded. "I think I've outgrown temper tantrums?" 

The woman breathed a short breath before saying: "Sir... what about the Knights of Ren?"

_ Touché _ . 

"General Hux was forced to kill the last one here. He was raving mad. He said things about you, sir - disturbing things. About you and  _ that young woman _ ." Her voice was tinged with curiosity, but not disdain. It reassured him.

"You've kept these things to yourself, I take it?" She nodded. She must have, or they would have welcomed him with handcuffs. The last time he’d associated with the Resistance fighter, things had not gone so well for the Supreme Leader. Now things were going a lot better, he smirked to himself, but he wasn’t quite ready - or at least  _ no one else _ was ready - to share that. 

"I'll need a new personal guard, then. Put one together for me: you'll be in charge of it.” Nothing like a promotion to ensure cooperation. 

“One last thing before you go: have my Ren mask and the Relic of Darth Vader enshrined in the museum. It is time to let old things die. Dismissed."

"Sir, yes. Thank you, Sir. Long Live our Supreme Leader Kylo." She saluted, turned heels and left. She was quick, that one. 

On a hunch he opened the book of Poetry. Sure enough, there was a note from Armitage Hux: he wanted his old ship back. Understandable. He looked at the page the note had been tucked into.

> _ Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there. _
> 
> _ When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about. _
> 
> _ Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion. _
> 
> _ The wound is the place where the Light enters you. _
> 
> _ Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form. _
> 
> _ Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along. _
> 
> _ Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself. _
> 
> _ Only from the heart can you touch the sky. _
> 
> _ Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? _
> 
> _ Let the waters settle and you will see the moon and the stars mirrored in your own being. _
> 
> _ This is how I would die into the love I have for you: as pieces of cloud dissolve in sunlight. _

He tucked the note into his pocket. He flipped through the pages to see if there were more. He placed it back on his nightstand. Then he headed out for his meeting.


	19. Fragile Vessels

_ *What are you doing?*  _ Luke.

_ *Depends. What are you referring to?* _ Rey was drawing sketches on board the Falcon with Rose.

_ *How are your studies coming along?* _

_ *Oh that. I can Force-heal  _ and  _ I can Force-choke, now.*  _

_ *That's just great.*  _ The force-ghost almost sighed. 

_ *I fixed the Skywalker Lightsaber. We fixed it, I mean.*  _ She hoped that would cheer him up at least. _ * But I’m working on a way to make a Lightstaff since I’m more comfortable with one.  _

A twin-bladed Light-Staff made from the Skywalker Twins’ weapons. 

_ *Poetic. When are you leaving for Remnicore?* _

_ *We didn't get any new information on the Tor Valum. I would rather we didn't go in blind. We really could use the help, you know.* _

She added: _ *Oh and we realized we can balance the Force by restoring the Grey Jedi!* _

_ *Yes you can. I was reaching that conclusion when you found me. _ * The old Master paused, pondering. * _ I'll see what I can find out.* _

Back on base, the rumor about her healing powers had spread. Other rumors were spreading as well, about a change of heart of the leaders of the First Order. About her personal role in that change of heart. They met with the remainder of the Resistance senior staff.

"There is no doubt there will be a schism within the First Order before long," Leia announced. "As extraordinary as it may sound, some of the top-ranking staff - she would not directly expose her son - are getting tired of perpetual war and seeking a compromise for a more stable, durable form of government. Of course, there are factions who resist change and the loss of control, and there are industries that fear for their profits. Those are the real enemy. Our role now is to find and support the dissenting factions." 

After the assembly, Rey met with Leia alone. "How goes my son? I hear you healed him from a wound he took while in the City."

"I did. He was playing at being Han Solo, Chewie said."

"He would. And he needed a woman to pull him out of trouble. Thank you. You've saved him more than once now."

There was a slightly embarrassed silence. 

"Tell me about my son, Rey." 

Rey thought of the way Ben kissed her. She thought of how they had first met. The way he had been covered head to toe, trying to wrap and contain himself into that rigid armor and frightening mask. And how quickly he had revealed his face to her when she had confronted him with it. The conflict in him. 

"Your son is all about Passion, Leia. Towering infernos and great crashing waves of passion. He was never going to submit to the Jedi code."

"I know that now. Can you temper him?"

Rey had a vision of a red hot steel blade being plunged into cool waters, a vision from the depths of humanity. That was the process of quenching, she thought; tempering was a more controlled process. 

"I don't know that that's really my responsibility. I know that he's making great efforts, now. Successful efforts."

"He is. But he's doing it for you. What would happen if you died, or left him? What would happen to the rest of us?"

"I'm just a fulcrum for him, or a ballast. Your son  _ is  _ tired of war, Leia. He really does want peace. He wants to come home."

"He wants a family."

"He does." A heartbeat’s pause. " _ I _ do." 

Leia looked at the woman who was already her son’s “better” half. She was young, but she was strong. As strong as her son needed her to be. "You have my blessings, Rey of Jakku," Leia finished. 

***

At the staff meeting, there was more agitation this time. He had shocked them into submission last time, but now questions and doubts were coming up. Showing them his naked face had been the best choice, he knew, but it took just as much effort keeping a calm facade as playing the monster had. He would not kill anyone today if he could help it. He kept his focus on the goal. After most of the reports had been spoken he walked to stand before the immense transpari-steel window. 

"We thought ourselves clever when we used the Starkiller base and destroyed the Republic. All we did was cause more Chaos. I wouldn't be surprised if some of you had family or friends on those planets. You've kept quiet about it, but our act is what is fueling dissension among the troops. That show of Power might have seemed like a victory to some - he looked at Hux and Pryde - but it really exposed our incapacity for Peace. I ask you: what do you see outside this window, Officers?"

"Stars, Sir. Millions of them."

"Each star is a light to a world. What happens when you snuff out the light?"

"That world dies, of course."

"Many of you have families out there, orbiting suns such as the ones we see here. Your children are not on board these Plasteel and ferroconcrete ships. They run outside in their sun's shine and play and have picnics in the grass, whether that grass is green, or orange or blue. Right?"

Many nods. An expectant silence. He took a deep breath.

"I would say we are our own worst enemy but in the past few weeks I have been contacted by a being who would put out all the stars in our Galaxy. I resisted its call." 

There. He'd said it. 

Someone laughed. 

He suppressed a sudden rage; instead turning around to look at the source of the laughter: a young officer, probably had not served directly under Snoke, who didn't know what the Force even was. A demonstration was needed; he picked the young man up from his chair, simply floating him up into the air. The man struggled, in a near panic, remembering the rumours about his predecessor. 

"I am one of the last trained Force-users in this Galaxy. We are facing the Tor Valum. I want all research resources directed towards studying this threat. Dismissed." He dropped the hapless officer unceremoniously on his ass as he marched toward the exit. 

"Hux, you get your ship back." And with that, he was gone. 

**

Armitage Hux went to meet his Supreme Leader in his quarters as requested. 

"Phasma tells me you rescued Ap'Lek from Ahch-To. Then you “dispatched” him. Why?" 

"Sir, he was making a scene; but we managed to contain him. I made an... administrative decision." Hux could be ruthless when needed, but this show of loyalty was more than he had expected. 

"Why?" he asked again.

"If I may, Sir?" Kylo nodded. "I have seen you change over the past few months. At first, I was wary of your instability. Then you seemed to find your… balance, I suppose. When the Ren told us about your... choice, I realized the young woman's influence has calmed you. Matured you. Focused your attention. Your reforms are bold, but necessary. They've given me an idea."

_ ‘Passion gives me focus’, _ Ben thought.

"Tell me about this idea of yours, Hux, it interests me." Kylo thought about some of Hux’s most disastrous ideas but he was willing to hear him out, if only to repay him for the General’s discretion - and for giving thought to his own ideas as he had asked him. 

Hux told him about the potter's son who looked after his collection. For the first time in years there was trust between them, if still shallow. 

"I would give him a potter's wheel, and some colors. So he could make some again. I could..." Hux fell silent again, unsure how to continue. "We've been at war for so long, Supre-"

"Call me Kylo. No... call me Ben." A huge gap closed between them, with an almost audible boom. "In private only."

"Of course! B-Ben, we've been at war for so long... I forgot what life would be without it."

"Aye. For the longest time, it seemed I only wanted to die in some blaze of glory,” the Dark man paused. “Starting a school of arts sounds like a great plan, Armitage. Armie? That name of yours..."

"Hux. It's really much better. It's my father's name. My- my family's name, I mean. A school for the arts. Of course, that's even better." 

"We've killed so many people, you and I. We'll spend the rest of our lives saving others."

There was a long, reflective pause.

"Agreed. Once we're done killing that ... being?" 

"I've seen it only once, so far. But it had tricked me before I even knew it existed. It nearly broke me."

"How did you resist it?"

"Ha! You won't believe this: I had help from my Grandfather."

"Darth Vader! That is an honor."

"Not Darth Vader, Hux. Anakin Skywalker." 

Hux stared. He understood the subtlety. He grew somber, "but how can we defeat it?"

"Have your best clercs research that. I will use their help. And the woman Rey is not a fling. She is my equal in the Force, that is what brought us together. Now go pack your stuff and get off my ship!"

"Right away, Supreme Leader." A smart salute and Hux was out the door. 

**

General Pryde had had a long and successful career in the Imperial flotilla. He had started under Emperor Palpatine. He had served under Darth Vader. After the Troubles he had finally found and served under Snoke. He was close to retiring now. Or he would have been if the Perfect Vision for the Master Species he had worked so hard for wasn't under threat by this new generation of wild wolves who called themselves men. They wasted precious money and resources in their hobbies and sterile sexual encounters instead of giving their all to the One True Order. They knew nothing of discipline. They knew nothing of sacrifice. He had given two sons and one daughter to his Emperor. He had given his only grandson to Snoke. And for what? 

He had thought this Kylo to be an annoyance but a useful figurehead. He certainly had been terrifying enough with that mask and his reputation kept the troops in check. Now? It was like he'd suddenly woken up and remembered he had murdered his way to Supreme Leader. Now he wanted to use the power he had grabbed for himself for his own goals, without any consideration for the Senior officers that had served the Empire since well before he had even been born. Skywalker be damned. He was the son of Leia Organa and a scoundrel. He had been Snoke's cur, and now Snoke was gone. 

There was another thing. The young General Hux had been dependable until now, one of the best officers he had seen under Snoke. Dedicated. Ruthless. Until just a few weeks ago. He had quickly accepted the "Reforms" proposed by Kylo. He would visit with him before he left his ship. 

When Pryde walked in, Hux was helping the boy Liam pack a particularly large piece in a crate. Half the potteries were already packed. This piece had chips and scratches on it, it didn't seem particularly well made, or valuable. He inquired about it. 

Hux straightened, ill-at-ease. "General Pryde... It was a gift." 

"A gift. And these others?"

Hux was loath to share such an intimate part of himself with a man that seemed to have lost all color of life about him. "My firsts pieces were collected after raids on villages. Some were bought on worlds I visited."

"I see. It's an unusual hobby to have, collecting fragile vessels,  _ for a man _ ." The emphasis was unmistakable.

"Protecting fragile artifacts is a man's most delicate duty, sir. It requires finesse and self-control." 

"Finesse." Pryde picked up a piece at random. It was the one with the gazelles running a great circle around it.

"Any piece of your collection could be destroyed by some careless hand. What is the value in that?"

Hux eyed the piece the Senior General held. The boy Liam gasped.

"And now that I have a good look at them, I see none have the Sacred Logo of our First Order. I expect better of you, young Armitage." He dropped the piece. It shattered on the black tile floor.

Hux barely had time to grasp the boy by the arm and push him behind him, but not before Enrich Pryde saw the movement.

"Oops," he said, "it seems I have made a mess; kindly clean that up and throw that junk into the garbage where it belongs, boy" He turned his dead eyes back to Hux: "Don't let your hobbies be a distraction from our Mission, Hux. We must be steadfast on our way to Supremacy. Now  _ get off my ship _ !" 

When the door shut, Armitage made a promise: "Collect the pieces carefully, then let's get the hell out of here. We'll put that vase back together, Liam. I promise." 

**

When night-shift came Ben found himself feeling even lonelier than he had ever felt. He missed her. He thought of their last... encounter? tryst?  _ Lovemaking _ , he named it finally. The rushed intensity of it. He had been hurt, maybe even fatally, and she had healed him; then very determinedly had taken his seed. Poe was almost right, saying she could get pregnant; it was obvious she  _ wanted _ to. With  _ his _ seed. 

_ “In your light I learn how to love. _

_ In your beauty, how to make poems. _

_ You dance inside my chest, where no one sees you, _

_ but sometimes I do, and that light becomes this art.” _

_ Maker _ , but the stakes were high! It was like Hux had said: he'd gone from boy to man in the space of weeks. He had everything within his grasp: power, love, allies, a clear enemy. A future before him if he could hold it all together. There was only one thing left to do before confronting the last Sith Master: he had yet to properly identify the rest of his enemies, the close ones... and find how to neutralise them. 

***

Rey studied in the Falcon, or tried to. She could feel him all alone out there, surrounded by enemies. What if he was betrayed? What if he was possessed again by that creature? What if he lost hope, what if the pressures of his generals made him cave in to their demands - unlikely, that - but still. She wanted to rush to him but there was much to do before people would understand the necessity of their union. The Rebel Scavenger and the Dark Lord Supreme Leader; it was wacky. She laughed out loud. She heard a deep-voiced laugh echo in her mind. He thought so too. 

She made a packet of the day's events and sent it to him; she received one in exchange. He was bold, he'd made allies. She decided she wanted to see him after all. With some effort, she managed to open the Bond; they were getting better at controlling it.

He appeared before her, reading a book, and she resisted the urge to get up and join him, like they would sometimes. She looked at her own book before her and had an idea. She made a mote of light, like she had before, then she blew it across the way to him. He gasped in surprise. 

She put a hand on her stomach. Whatever the odds, she had to survive. She didn't know what the future held for them, or even if there was a future for them, but she would carry it with her.

**

General Organa sat at her desk. The events unfolding before her would have been simply unbelievable a mere half a year ago. The girl Rey had completely upended the galaxy's fate. Her husband Han had died, breaking her son's heart, making a way for Light to come in in the most unexpected way. The Resistance had found a path into the First Order heart's as well. Patience and understanding was the strategy now. Wisdom to tell foe from friend. 

And on top of all that, Rey had become the vessel of her son's hope. 


	20. The Mutiny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Kylo decides to separate the chaff from the grain.

Troop inspection had revealed the restlessness of the shock troops, like Phasma had said. The troops needed a physical enemy now. There was little information on the Tor Valum - for such a mythical being he was an elusive one as well - but Kylo knew of another enemy more immediate and whose reality was much easier to grapple with. He marched the halls to meet with General Pryde and his staff. He barged into the man's office, making the statuesque blonde major jump up hastefully. "Tell the General I am here."

"Of course, right away, Sir."

He looked at her stealing side glances at him while she announced his presence : his scarred face put her off, he could tell, no matter the power he held. She was nervous and that told him a great deal about the ways things were evolving in this office. Finally she showed him in, and he invited her to take part in this impromptu meeting. 

Enrich Pryde sat at his desk, trying to hide the frown on his face, without much success. Kylo stood, waiting, an image of benevolent patience before a slow child. Pryde felt the pressure and stood up, inviting his Supreme Leader to sit, before sitting back down himself. Protocol. 

"You did not much say about the recruiting plan I asked for, General. You've had a few days."

"Supreme Leader, I had the draft made and sent to you, sir."

"I read it. " A surprised look flashed on the Senior General's face. Kylo was almost enjoying himself. "But I want to hear more about it. From you and the Major, here." 

They complied. After twenty minutes of wrangling administrative talk, he understood more about bureaucracy then he ever had in his lifetime. _The First Order indeed_ , he thought. 

He thought of Rey of Jakku, little better than a slave, before her immense potential had been revealed. He thought of Finn, too. 

"Very well. I want you to find our major slave-providers in the region and prepare the shock troops for some tactical operations on them."

The General blanched so suddenly that Kylo worried he had, in fact, struck him dead. The Major actually gasped in shock. Keeping a straight face himself was the hardest thing he had done in a while; he almost missed his mask. 

The General was too wizened to sputter in protest. His dead eyes almost concealed his disgust. The woman had no such discipline, barely managing to keep quiet. 

"Excellent, Supreme Leader, we will have the troops ready for an attack within forty-eight hours."

"See to it that you do." He let himself out. He had forty hours to prepare for a mutiny. Less. 

*

He made a packet of his plans and sent them to Rey. The Resistance were to be ready to manage a mutiny. Then he changed into his training gear and went to the training arena. This time he offered a bonus to who could beat him in the standard and advanced forms of combat. No use of Force. 

**

Rey ran as fast as she could to headquarters. "He's going to start a mutiny! He wants our help!"

Leia stared at her in disbelief: "A mutiny? Against who? _He's_ the Supreme Leader !"

"I don't have more info. He called it a slave-rebellion. He wants to meet in twenty hours. With you." 

***

Bruised and battered, he had a bruised rib and a split ear but he was gaining their respect. Two of the best instructors were conscripts, which meant they were slaves. He washed, changed and took the _Silencer_ to the _Finalizer_ , a box of sorted documents in the back. Hux met him in the Ship's library to take the box before accepting his company on the way back to his quarters. Once there, Hux offered him an ice pack for his ear. Kylo looked at the ginger general's half unpacked collection. Then he told him what he had ordered Pryde to do. 

"By his reaction, I expect him to botch the attack and use it as a cover to dispatch me. Friendly fire or something."

" _Maker_ ! You're provoking him into a _mutiny_?! " 

"Yes, and I need you to put down said mutiny. I hope you know your men."

"By God! This is _insane_ ! "

"It gets better, I've contacted the Resistance for support."

Hux was so stunned, for a moment he thought he'd gone mad. The end result of this "operation" would be Hux in command as his interim, and the more intolerant elements of the fleet expunged. The Resistance would infiltrate a few advisers, to guide the progress of the battle. The Supreme Leader would be "wounded" enough to be evacuated. 

He would then travel to Remnicore with a small team to eliminate the threat there. Hux was to remain ready to assist if the threat proved to have troops as well. 

"So, he asked, how well do you know your men?"

"What do we have to offer them?"

"Inclusion, education, respect. With a side of revenge on the slavers." 

Hux felt something swell inside him. "A proper civilization". 

**

Instead of flying back to the _Steadfast_. Kylo hopped about a bit and made it to the rendez-vous planet. Leia, Poe and Finn were there to meet with him. Leia looked at her son. He stood tall and sure of himself. He had accomplished the terrible tasks she had asked of him. She embraced him and for a moment he let himself be soft. Then he told them what plan he had so far. They agreed on a slaver's outpost as a primary target to attack to coordinate their efforts. A backup outpost was proposed, in case General Pryde balked at the first one. 

Then he straightened, waiting.

"Basically, you're provoking a mutiny to justify a purge for control of the First Order? Isn't that a bit hot-headed of you?" Leia tested him. "You know the reforms will take time, you said so yourself. Why didn't you decide to give it more time so you have better support among the troops and the population?"

He was a bit deflated by that. "I have to get rid of General Pryde. He's blocking the reforms. Attacking slavers is consistent with my vision, especially if my shock-troops are slaves themselves." 

"Can't you just throttle him like you've done others?" That was Finn. 

"I'm trying to move past that. Forcing him into a mutiny will reveal the factions to each other, instead of having distrust and conspiracy within the ranks." 

‘ _“If you know your enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles_ ’” quoted Poe. "Are you planning on staying on as Supreme Leader, then? Or are you Ben Solo? You can't have both." 

"I- I'm not there yet. I have to kill a god first, remember?"

"How's that coming along?" Leia again. She thought of Palpatine, and the last minute change of heart that had permitted his defeat.

"Slowly. It hasn't tried to connect with me again. The wait is almost as bad as fighting it off is hard. For all its Power, it sure is discreet."

He thought of something. 

"And another thing, I'll need Rey with me. Disguise her so she's not so obvious." 

"Rey? Are you sure you want to expose her? She could be-" Leia cut off.

That shook him. 

"I need her with me. We are first and foremost a Dyad, m- General, and I need her to be battle-hardened for what comes after."

***

That evening, Pryde had drawn up potential targets and a basic battle plan. It was one of the compounds the Resistance had proposed. The General felt it would be best if the Supreme Leader would go down planet-side to encourage the troops. Kylo agreed, he would indeed show the scum what he was capable of. They would free the slaves and bring back some of the Slavers to obtain fresh information and make examples of. Simple operation, maybe three to six hours tops. Orders were passed around the table. 

They would begin operations in T minus twelve hours. 

Kylo trained again and nearly got his nose broken this time. He also finally mastered an advanced form he had never quite gotten right before. They congratulated him. He told them the basis of the coming operation against the slavers, gauging their reactions. He saw who was with him and who wasn't. Only one would let him down. 

At supper, the people who decided to sit with him were quiet or spoke in low tones. He got the feeling they were guarding him. 

By midnight, he had written his motivational speech. He felt so proud of himself he inked a copy and decided to try to Force-send it to Rey, with some extra info. He had to clap it into her hand for it to work. Good to know. 

At T minus two hours, he made it to the Parade hanger and delivered the speech he hoped was simple enough to clearly divide the troops:

"Troops, today we tell the galaxy that the First Order will no longer tolerate the suffering of the orphan and the subjugation of the defenseless. Most of you did not come here by choice, or by a desire to contribute to this great Order. Most of you were taken as a tribute your family had no means to pay for but with its own future. If the First Order is to rule over the galaxy it must not do so at the price of future generations and endless wars. I have announced new recruitment policies. I must be coherent with these policies and end the conscriptions. From this day on, we say to the People that slavery is outlawed and Slavers will be routed and executed wherever they may be found. The future of any of our People is the future of all our People. 

Besides, some of you can't shoot worth shit, [surprised laughter at this ]. You know who you are. I'd rather you fix my glider or shelve the books in the Great Library. 

General Hux, you have the floor." He left to the murmur of an army undergoing a profound transformation, like a hive preparing to swarm.

The dice were thrown. In six hours, Kylo Ren would be either dead or on his way to killing the last Sith Master. 

**

They had targeted the larger of the two slaver's outposts in the near system. Taking over the encampment had been a good battle; he had managed to keep the blood-thirst at bay, keeping his head on the situation before him as it unfolded. His troops had done well for themselves for once; it had been a gamble some of them might have been ordered to leave neither slaver nor slave alive. They made it to the holding pens and started freeing them, sending them away to safety for now; their situations would be sorted later.

He let his force-sensitivity wander until he felt her near - his heart leapt up in his chest - and went in her direction with his guard hand-picked by Phasma; the Major herself had been ordered to stay with Hux. There were a dozen Resistance fighters, all told. They were "freed". When he met with them, he made a show of it: "You men can fight?" He missed his mask. He missed his Knights. "Yes." "Give these men weapons," he ordered. 

There was a moment's wait. Then, sure enough, his comms officer announced: "Sir, there are reinforcements coming in for the Slavers." 

He could see her in the back, her small frame encased in a plastoid and shell-spider-silk armour, her face hidden within a cowl. He identified Poe in the group: "Don't... don't let anything - " 

"I won't," Poe promised. 

The second battle started, and finally the first mutineers started taking his now-loyal men down. He cranked his sensitivity into high gear: he had to put them down quickly without hurting the ones that would follow him back into the main battle on board the Steadfast. He looked up into the sky and saw that the Finalizer was attacking the reinforcement ships, whereas General Pryde was holding fire. 

They won this round too. They ran back to the transports and he embarked with the troops as they blasted back up to the main ship. On the way, they heard General Pryde over the comm: he was yelling something about the Master Species using the First Order as the Maker's tool to achieve Supremacy over all the dejected sub-species in the Galaxy, even if it meant destroying every last one of them.

And something about Kylo _no-Ren_ betraying that Holy Mission etc, etc. He ordered the comms cut, opened his own channel, and said: 

"General Pryde considers ALL OF YOU to be sub-par, make no mistake. He would destroy every one of your families' home-worlds. He will. I have announced reforms, and with General Armitage Hux's help, and yours, _by the Maker_ we will make these happen. Today is the last day you were asked to kill women and children to calm an old man's fears and insecurities. After this battle, you will be free to return home, wherever it may be, or stay on to kill other slavers, or to learn trades that are useful to the People of the Galaxy. What say you? Do you want Peace? _Real_ Peace?" 

"Real PEACE!" was the resounding answer. 

It was a race against time to board ship and overrun it. Not taking his shuttle meant Pryde shot transports at random, not knowing which one he was in. It also meant his men saw him with them. 

One of them took his helmet off. Others followed. They looked at each other and him and he saw the Light come on in their eyes. He nodded at them then looked at his comm officer: "Tell the others to take their masks off. We will show the faces of our humanity. In the back of his mind, Rey was filled with pride. He felt Anakin Skywalker there too. His feelings were threatening to overwhelm him. 

In the sky, and the space between the planet and the _Steadfast_ , TIE-fighters were fighting TIE-fighters that were targeting them. Most of the transports made it to the hangars and the docking bays. Some had to blast their way in. The battle proper was about to begin. 

On board one of the transports, Finn was being recognized by fellow troopers:

\- FN-2187! We thought you were dead!

\- GN-8987, is that you? And FS-4546? You're with us?!

\- It's Glenn Redfire now, and my brother Fasan Redfire. Unofficial, but I suspect if we win, it will be policy. So much has been happening in the past half-year, you wouldn't believe it. 

\- _Oh_... I believe it. 

They disembarked: the ship had become a frantic anthill. To see so many stormtroopers with actual faces was like something out of a hectic dream. Finn stared, mouth agape: even in his wildest dreams, he had never imagined anything like this. They ran together with a small squadron of "loyalists"; this one was headed towards the starboard weapons bay. "We are going to take over the canons so they don't shoot at the _Finalizer_ or the other ships with us." The Resistance advisers split into smaller squads, some headed back out to the other commands that had made the right choice.

Poe ran with Rey, he was to help her reach Ben as fast as possible; his other men had made sure they had identified themselves with the troopers they ran with as "Freedom Fighters who had heard of the changes in the First Order and wanted to help". It was the craziest thing they had ever said. Suddenly, Rey stopped in her tracks, eyes closed. After a moment, she said: "this way" and led the way. As they ran, she took out her blaster and started shooting. As they advanced, her aim became better, then she was howling and soon that howl became a battle cry; with the men around them it became a roar. 

She force-pushed a trooper out of the way and suddenly the howling stopped. Their cover was blown. She was _The Woman_. She stopped before a lift and Poe looked at their squad looking at her. "C'mon men, you know who this is. We have to protect her at all cost!" One hesitated. Poe watched him make a decision. Finally he made a religious sign and his face took on a look of determination. "We have to reach the command bridge," he said, “that's where Pryde will be, that's where the Supreme Leader will be going. We have to take her to him." They continued their advance.

Hux was having a battle of his own. There were more men loyal to him than he had hoped for on the _Finalizer_ , but on board the other ships in this fleet, it was not a won bet. The faster the _Steadfast_ was overrun, the faster the mutiny would be ended. His own purge was nearly ended, only small pockets still reported to be resisting. He had to decide whether he would send more of his men over to the _Steadfast_ , or to aid potential allies in the other ships. He chose to disable enemy canons with his air force for now. 

One ship in particular, the  _ Incinerator _ , was shooting at the  _ Finalizer _ , and he had to counter that attack with disabling fire. And then, unexpectedly, the  _ Incinerator  _ banked away from the battle, and disappeared into  hyperspace . 

Kylo had become separated from his close guard; he ran ahead, having only minutes to make it to the main Bridge. He let the blood-lust take him, his encounters turning into a kind of dance, his light-saber slashing like a red paint-brush. Anyone who didn't cower or run from him was an enemy. Across the length of the ship and up the decks, he left a trail of destruction. By the time he made it to the last deck, he was covered in blood and offal. The closer he came to his goal, the more he felt her. They finally met up in the last 300 meters before their destination.

He saw her coming toward him, spinning a dual-tipped lightsaber-staff like a death spiral - she must have fabricated an extending sleeve in the short time they’d been apart - the men around her staying far out of her reach. A hapless contingent of mutineers appeared between them. With a roar she Forced-pushed half of them down. She blocked blaster shots.

She was painted red like him and he heard her snap necks. She was unstoppable and for a moment he felt as terrified as the men protecting her. When the last enemy fell, she looked around her, hungry for more. He caught up with them, and the troopers fell away from her, praying or reciting mantras. Poe was crying. When he saw Kylo he wiped his eyes, glared at him, and yelled "Is she battle-hardened enough for you now?" Terrible loss showed on his face. A horrible feeling filled Ben but he pushed it aside. They were before the Command Bridge doors. He caught her in his arms. She pushed him away. "Where is he?" she demanded. The men looked at him. He shut his face down immediately to keep from howling. 

He counted the troops around him: with him there were nine left. He gave them each an appraising look. They were ready.

He pushed the comms button. All through the flag-ship, his deep baritone resounded: "Enric Pryde, you have one minute to surrender, or be surrendered, before we come in and relieve you of your command". They waited. From inside the room they heard shouting, then silence, then more shouting and some shooting. Then more silence. Kylo closed his eyes in concentration, trying to Force-probe his way into the General's mind, but he couldn't quite reach him. He looked around, found Rey and grasped her hand. They combined their efforts. 

The old General had rigged the bay window to explode if the door opened. Most of the command staff was dead. Enrich Pryde was not about to surrender to "a pack of mongrel dogs".

"Dameron, find out how the rest of the battle is going?" Poe unhooked his comm-link and asked his men. The fighting had subsided most everywhere. "Can you hook us up with Hux?" A nod. 

After a minute, he heard Hux's voice: "Supreme Leader? Are you alright?" 

"Yes we made it. Pryde has barricaded himself on the main bridge. Since he won't come out the door, would you please blow him out the window? Give us ten seconds to get out of the way."

"Right away Sir, it would be my pleasure." They vacated the immediate area, placing themselves on the other side of a fire door, just in case.

The comm-link chirped: "Target acquired."

"One round. Fire, over."

"Fire, out."

Moments later the deck shook under their feet. Lights and sirens flashed. 

Then came the confirmation:

"End mission, Steadfast Bridge destroyed. Estimate 10 casualties. Out." 

It was over.

"Well done, General Hux. We have a New Order." 

"Yes we do, Sir, yes we do." On that, the Supreme Leader Kylo collapsed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a lot of work but worth it. Celebrations come after.


	21. The Seed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Act III

It was General Armitage Hux's finest hour.

"As you know, our Supreme Leader was wounded in battle and is now evacuated to a planet where he can recover properly. He asked me to speak in his place so that you may understand the events of the last two days. 

"Enric Pryde was an old man who sacrificed all his children to his ideals of the Past. We as the First Order tried the ways of the Past; it doesn't care much for the Future. When the Supreme Leader Kylo delivered us from Supreme Leader Snoke, he only knew that the Past had failed him. He had no clear vision before him. Then, as you know, he started observing and studying other ways to live. He started listening to you and the things you wanted. He started listening to the other People in the Galaxy, and their grievances, and found that the reasons why there was a Resistance out there were justified. He concluded that the First Order could be forever at war, and thus forever destroying its own Future. So, because he himself is a young man, he started to picture a different Vision for us. Like his Grandfather Anakin Skywalker before him, he made the choice to kill the past, so we can birth a Future of Inclusion, Education and Respect. A future of Peace.

"Enric Pryde was unwilling to accept this Vision and rebelled. Myself, I spoke at length with Kylo and came to understand the way forward he proposed. Rather than fear the unknown and control it or destroy it, he asked that we embrace it. I agreed. 

"Some of you made difficult choices in your finest hour; know that the Galaxy will know you as Heroes for this Peace we seek. Some made the ultimate sacrifice, some of you merited promotions that will be announced. As well, the title of Supreme Leader is abolished, and once he has recovered, Kylo will take place as a general among a council of Generals and Civilian representatives of their Systems. 

"Long live the founder of the New Order, long live General Kylo!"

Cheers of "Kylo, Kylo!" and "Hux, Hux, Hux!" went up, and then another chant started, a murmur at first, then gaining strength with each beat. "Skywalker, Skywalker, Skywalker!"

"It does have a nice ring to it" he thought, more moved than he could show right now. 

***

They helped him up off the stretcher to the sound of subdued applause: they had pulled it off. The War had ended. The First Order had been turned around.

They led him on shaky legs to showers so he could be scrubbed clean of all the death and blood he had plastered all over him. In another shower space, the same was being done for Rey and the surviving Resistance volunteers. The smell of offal would wash out of his hair but the memory of it would never leave him, he knew. It was even in his mouth. He threw up several times, until nothing would come up anymore. After that, he was given clean robes and put in a private room in the med center so he could recover. His mother came to see him. She took his hand.

"Rey is recovering too, they're treating her for an eye infection," she said, "tomorrow, you will be able to see her. Sleep, now." 

He slept for the first time in two days. 

Some time later, he woke, saw Poe Dameron there. "Finn stayed on the Finalyzer with his old squad mates, as an observer. He told me when he came back that Hux gave a very moving speech in your name. He told me the troops cheered you. They cheered you as "Skywalker",” the pilot told him, but Ben was still too stunned by his own action for it to register. 

"How's Rey?" 

"She's sedated. She woke up a couple hours ago, confused about where she was. She panicked and she...hurt someone. Rose managed to calm her down, but they gave her something to make her sleep again." 

"How are you doing?"

"I'd say, you get used to it, but this battle was something else. I don't usually get up close like that, I'm a pilot, right? Good thing we won." 

"I feel like we came full circle. We had a Republic. We destroyed it. Now we have to build it again."

"The war is over, Ben. Peace begins."

"There's that. Until I have to leave to do that last bit that needs doing."

All that was left was to destroy the Last Sith Lord. That was tomorrow. Tonight, they would revel in their Victory. 

He managed to see her only minutes before the official diner. The senior staff had decided to make it a subdued affair, much of the partying having happened while they were recuperating. They were dressed each in clean formal clothing, Ben wearing a light doublet in shades of grey and burgundy, Rey in a simple, high-waisted dress in shades of grey with a blue bodice. She would have been lovely if not for her haunted look.

Rey was having trouble focusing on things around her at first, but after a while she started to relax. Ben gave her a hug, but she needed her space. They were seated together at the main table, confirming the rumours of the incredible partnership that had formed - at long last - between Snoke’s Jedi-killer and the Last Jedi.

It was Poe and Finn he spoke with most of the evening. 

Introducing General Hux and General Organa had been the highlight of the evening. Ever the diplomat, Leia made Hux feel comfortable, respecting the distance he needed to get his bearings. Finally, she got him to talk about his plans for that Art School and much tension went out between them. It flowed out like a soft wave across the whole area, and there was more mingling after that. 

Not many people came to speak with Kylo Ben; small talk was never much his thing, so he ceded his seat to Rose and joined Chewbacca, quietly telling him the parts of the battle he could tell, since Chewie had stayed behind. He glanced at Rey, occasionally; saw her once or twice smelling her fingers and rub them on her napkin. She would remember that smell for years, he knew. 

When the music had died down he came back for her and offered her his hand. She looked at him: tall, dark, beautiful in spite of that scar. His demeanor was calm but his eyes warmed like ember. There were appreciative murmurs around them.

To Ben, she shone like a beacon. He would find her in the darkest night. He had, in fact, found her when he was in the darkest night. She took his hand. 

He led her to his ugly bat shuttle. When they were inside he kneeled before her, embraced her hips and put his head to where her womb was, as if listening for something there. He looked up at her as she held his head, tracing the scar on his face.

There was a question there.

*I don't know yet,* she replied softly.

"I love you" he finally said.

"I love you," she answered. She pulled him up and they made their way to the small berth. They were in harmony. They made love several times in the few hours of peace and security that were granted them, sowing their secret garden. 

**

The next day was a day for planning their confrontation with the Tor Valum. They knew, or the Sith Way-finder knew how to get to it. They knew what their enemy looked like. They knew the creature was thousands of years old, of an extinct species, by the description and drawings the couple had given them or found in the sacred Texts. They discovered the rites of its worship were even darker than they had imagined, requiring blood sacrifices and degradations the rest of the Sith had abandoned over the ages. They knew it used illusion and mind-control. They thought they knew what it wanted: control of the Galaxy through the First Order with the purpose of destroying the stars. 

What they didn't know was why it wanted to destroy the stars. They didn't know if it was alone, or if it had troops as well. If so, how many? 

They had foiled the original plans of the Tor Valum when Ben resisted it, but then they wondered if Pryde had been possessed by the Tor Valum once it realized it had failed with Ben. Had it influenced Snoke? Was Hux at risk? They all looked at the flamme-bright General.

On that, Armitage's eyes grew wide. Leia intervened: "You need some kind of fail-safe mechanism. You still have too much power concentrated in too few hands."

After a few moments mulling over the concept, Hux declared: 

"Military operations will have to be ... voted on by the Council, from now on. With clear rules of engagement." Several heads around the table nodded in approval.

"We may need support, and we may need it suddenly" added Ben. "Have a division reserved just for that." He looked around, "where's Rey? She should be here."

"She's resting," someone answered smoothly. They looked at him and he felt sudden color rise to his cheeks. 

"Fine. This meeting is adjourned, if that's alright with you General Organa?" The matriarch nodded. "We reconvene this afternoon. Hopefully, we will have more information by then." He made to leave. 

Leia stopped him on the way out. "I'm proud of you, son," she said simply.

"I wouldn't have made it without you, mom. You saved me from putting out the Light." 

"Aye. It wasn't easy, keeping hope. Now you have to do something just as terrible."

He nodded.

"You have to let Rey grow her Dark side, without it consuming her." 

He nodded again. His shoulders slumped.

"You don't have to be the only one that does it. You have trainers that can help her. You have your grandfather that can guide you."

"That's true."

"And judging by the way your relationship is evolving, I'd say you only have a couple weeks to resolve this." 

Ben frowned at this and then a big, luminous smile broke out on his face. Leia's heart bound in her chest. 

**

Ben went to meet Rey in the training arena, having retained the services of his most trustworthy master-at-arms, a veteran called Lucas. She was to improve shooting, and hand-to-hand combat. Above all, Lucas was to teach her to control her rage: she had killed two of her protective escorts while they had made their way through the  _ Steadfast _ . 

She got to work right away and he saw that angry fire flare up in her eyes.  _ Maker _ , how that excited him. He resisted the urge to pick her up and take her with him right there and then. "Passion gives me focus," he recalled.  _ I'm trying _ . He left to find a quiet area he could meditate in. He reached out with his mind. 

Anakin came to meet him. 

_ *You did something extraordinary with that fleet, son. No one even imagined such a thing, and you did it.*  _

_ *It was a gamble, Grandfather, but it felt like the only thing to do. I had not been granted so much power just so I could run around chasing after my tail and breaking things.* _

_ *Indeed. Did you find out where the Remnicore system is?* _

_ *Not precisely. Somewhere in the outer rim? Some place not officially charted yet?* _

_ *Have a look at the wayfinder. It will tell you much you need to know.* _

_ *Grandfather,*  _ he hesitated, then asked: _ *What should I teach Rey?* _

_ *Force Stun would be useful. Also : Serenity gives Strength* _

_ *Serenity gives Strength? That's not Sith.* _

_ *I learn through you too, Ben.* And he was gone.  _

* 

He made his way to navigation, meeting Rose there. They hooked up the Way-finder to the console then ran the script Rose had worked on. A pin appeared on the map. "That's odd. That can't be right."

"Do you think it's broken? I mean, that can't be where we're going."

They looked at it again. The evidence of it becoming more and more obvious. His face fell. 

"There's no coming back from there." 

*

Rey missed her parry, suddenly distracted. She took the hit to her cheek, and she fell back, but not before Force-pushing her opponent several feet. He picked himself up and frowned: she had broken the rule: physical only. She ran out.

She caught him at his shuttle just before he closed the hatch. She leapt in, and went all the way to the cockpit, just to be sure. He ran in after her. "What are you  _ doing _ ? You're  _ supposed _ to be training?" he said angrily, obviously unhappy with her intrusion.

"What are  _ you _ doing, Ben Solo? I couldn't read it, but you were feeling something very  _ loudly _ ." She looked at his face: he was white as snow. Sudden understanding hit her: "You were about to leave without me. Why?" 

He was found out. There had been no time. He had rushed to get to his shuttle before word made its way to her, but had not been able to keep his fear from her. He slumped in one of the seats. "I can't take you with me," he finally said.

"Since when? You have new information? What is it?" She demanded, her brow furrowed in puzzled worry. 

"The Remnicore System is called that way because it is "the Remains of the Core". It's at the center of the Galaxy."

"It is? I thought it would be somewhere near the outer rim, or something. What about it?"

"What's at the center of the Galaxy, Rey?"

"Well, there's a lot more stars in the center, great clusters of them. I've heard you can barely tell night from day there. Navigation is extremely difficult."

"And at the very center? What's there?"

He'd lost all composure, his face a mask of anguish. 

"Nothing, I think. It's black, if I remember. Oh that would make sense, if the Tor is putting the suns out. What? No?"

"It's not just black, Rey. It's a Black Hole."

It was her turn to slump in a seat. 

"If you go without me, you will fail,” she declared. “Either I come with you, or we stay here and we let it go." 

"I can't take you with me. What if you're - " hope and grief warred on his face. 

"Oh no... no you  _ don't! _ " She flared up, and picked him up with the Force. She slammed him against the bulkhead. "We agreed to the risks. I will follow you wherever you go, so if you try to leave again I will go by myself." She stomped out, crossing Poe on the ramp. 

Ben was picking himself up when he heard Poe asking to come in. "Sure, why not. I'm not going anywhere." 

"Rose told me. I see Rey is none too happy about it. What are we going to do?"

"We?"

"Hey "Supreme Leader", it's my galaxy too. Our galaxy. Any one of us would die to save it. We're the Resistance, right? We can put a good team together. Get you two where you need to be to defeat this guy." Ben was once again reminded of that long-ago sunny afternoon spent smoking-up with another son-of-someone-illustrious who dreamed of becoming the Galaxy’s best pilot. 

They’d laid on their backs watching clouds float above them until the stars had started to come out and his mother had called him to leave. He’d wanted to shake Dameron’s hand but the older boy had given him a big hug instead. They made plans to see each other again, but Ben soon forgot them, his head once again snared by the spell Snoke had woven around him. 

By the meeting in the afternoon, they had better plans, in light of the new information. For one thing, they would put a solid team together. Then, they would travel to near the core of the system before going in. Meanwhile, Rey and Ben would train and test their abilities in combination.


	22. Growth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Ben.

Luke. * _ A Dyad needs to know how to work together. Try that. _ *

* _ How? _ * she asked.

_ *Lift rocks together. Teach him to heal. You'll both gain confidence.* _

_ *Even if we win, how do we get back?*  _

_ *We'll find a way for you, me and the other Jedi here* _

_ *Where's here? Where are you?* _

_ *A place called the World between Worlds* _

**

"He said to lift rocks?" Ben was dubious. 

"He said to lift rocks  _ together _ ." Rey laughed, suddenly, "Let's make this a game: first on our own, then together. Let's see how much you can lift."

They found an abandoned quarry a few miles out. She had already shown her strength on Crait, thought she had to do it again so they could compare. She lifted twice as much this time, a dozen tonnes. She dropped the boulders. His turn: a bit more than her. Not much. Pride helped. Then they tried together. Like for stopping the Night Buzzard, they found that they could weave their threads together, into a crude sort of net, or a basket; they didn't have to hold each individual boulder up. They held more, easily. Rey looked around her, saw and picked up every big rock she saw and dropped them into their Force-basket; some fell through. Ben added more. They started moving forward, looking for more rocks to move. They ran out of boulders before they hit their max. When they dropped them, it triggered a small earthquake. Combined, their brute force was more than 5 times what it was individually. "That was incredible!" he exclaimed, and she nodded with a wide smile on her face. "What else can we do?" 

Just in the quarry, they could do quite a bit, it seemed: they lifted a fair-sized boulder as high as they could. Alone, half a kilometer; together? Out of sight. Then Rey thought of the net they formed and decided to test how fine they could weave it. They started gathering head-sized rocks. It took incredible concentration just to keep a single tonne in the air. The finer the matter, the finer the net, the more concentration it took. Pebbles were excruciatingly hard to hold. 

They stood for a moment and looked at the waterhole at the bottom of the quarry: no net could be woven fine enough to hold water. Ben could push it away, in waves as if he shoveled it, but of course it would flow back in. Then he thought of how the Force existed within the water and tried to pull a strand of it to him. It worked. He shared the knowledge with Rey and they discovered that water had to be pulled up instead of pushed and carried. 

After that, they took a lunch break on a cliff overlooking the little lake in the quarry. Rey moved close to him, then sat in his lap. He hugged her closer, kissed her head, she pushed it back onto his shoulder and he buried his face in her hair, smelling her musk and her sweat. She swayed against him; he felt himself become hard with desire. For a minute he struggled with himself: it was bad enough he would risk her life to save their world, he wouldn't risk more if there was an off-chance he could help it. They could make all the love they wanted on the way back from hell, if they made it back. He managed to regain control of himself, his mind made up. 

In the afternoon he taught her how to shield herself from incoming harm. She already knew the basics, she had Force-parried his swipes when they had battled - just a few weeks ago, but it felt like a lifetime away - and bolts from blasters. He went about it as spreading a layer or a sheet of energy before him. The larger the area the thinner it was. She wondered if they could use the netting they had learned to cover more area. They tried a few things, concentrating on putting a shield up quickly, then instead of bolts or rocks, they practiced using clumps of dirt, or twiggs or even splashes of water. By the end of the day, they were covered in mud.

She made her way to the quarry-pond, stripping along the way, and he remembered how he had threatened her the first time they had met: "You know I can take whatever I want," he'd told her. 

Now it was all he could do to resist her. 

He joined her but washed quickly, keeping some distance from her, and leaving the pond before she had a chance to approach him. She watched him go, he had a pained look about him, but all she sensed from him was resolve. Then she remembered what Rose had told her: if he thought he lost her and a child, it would kill him. 

The day's learning was done, they headed back to the shuttle to get back to the base. When she came in, he was taking out the prev-kit. He took a breath, then asked: "You know what this is?" 

She nodded: "I understand." 

He gave her a relieved smile. "It takes a while to take effect," he said, "a couple days." 

She gave him a wicked look. "Hmmm, we can find other ways in the meanwhile." 

When they finally made it back to base, they had a lot of washing to do. 

They slept in clean linens that night, spooned but cautious. She startled awake once, but fell back asleep quickly. As he held her, he thought of the ways she had changed his life. Out of an entire Galaxy, he had found her on a dinghy outback planet. They were a Force Dyad, even if they had ten years between them. She had been born when he had been given to Luke to found his Jedi School. Why had the Force waited so long for them to meet? She had been put in his way just before he found Luke and killed the last Jedi.

Had it waited until she was a woman? He thought of how things would have been had they met before now. He would have mocked her as a child; Snoke would have killed her or turned her as a teen. Them meeting at such a time in his life - when he was already a grown man, even as stunted as he was, and she was just blooming into her own strength - it had affected the way he had first treated her upon finding her. He had not been suspicious of her, so innocent she was. Then she had flowered right before him; that had changed everything. As if she had been made for him, given to him as a sacrificial virgin.

He had accepted that sacrifice. And considering his years of celibacy, they had waited for each other.  _ Mystical Lovers. _ Was that all that had been needed to turn Kylo Ren back to Ben Solo? A woman's touch? But no. She was not "a woman". She was also Dark Rey. She was the one who tamed Kylo Ren.

He still had done terrible things after they met, and it was extraordinary that she had forgiven him, that any had forgiven him. He had had to learn about making peace in little time, and through great effort. He had learned much about himself and the choices he still could make. Choices he would spend the rest of his life making, paying off the debt he had incurred for himself.

**

The next morning they would teach each other new things. It was Rey's turn to teach, about healing. First they had to find a wounded volunteer. In the infirmary, no wounded remained; they had lost only two people during the mutiny, and the wounded had recovered over the last three days. Leia volunteered, but it was out of the question. Ben suggested they wound an animal and heal it, but that had upset her. So, in the end, he picked up a knife and stabbed himself in the thigh. 

She hissed but immediately put her hand on him and told him to let himself feel the flow of the Force. He felt it move busily around his wound but had trouble figuring out where to start the flow. She put his hand under hers, and he felt it move from her to him. It was like the Force-probe in a way, but with a very different goal. She closed the wound before he had quite figured it out. Seeing the confused look on his face, she bit her lip and stabbed herself in turn.

She lay back. She put his hand on her heart: first he felt her pain. He traced the path between his hand and the wound, then he traced the path back to his own heart. "Now," she said, "let the Light flow from you to me. You can direct the Force to close the wound, or you just give some of your life-force to - to me." 

Ah, he understood, and he realized how this was an intimate thing. Instead of forcing his way in and taking away, he was guiding and giving to her. She was right on both methods, he could Force the wound closed, and then just let part of himself flow to her. When he was done, there was just a ugly scar on her leg. He was exhausted. 

He suddenly burst into tears. Surprised, he covered his face. She sat up and gathered him to her heart. A few medics were there, astonished at the sight of their old enemy crying with the relief of having learned to give of himself. Rey kissed him and held him close.

In the afternoon, he had to teach her Force Freeze and its variant Stun. Again, a lack of volunteers made this difficult. So he first had to do it to her again. He held her and for a moment he felt powerful again, followed by embarrassment. 

When it was her turn, she had volunteers aplenty and he wanted to laugh at them but checked himself. Her first attempts failed. He pondered this. She grew frustrated and had some success, but lost her grip as soon as her victim looked frightened. So he froze her again. He had to make her angry. He did but not quite the way she needed to be to focus on her target.

He remembered he had Lucas available. They exchanged a few words. At his signal, Lucas attacked her with his staff. She pushed him. Then Ben picked up a staff himself and attacked her from the other side, and she pushed him. Walking by, Poe saw how things were going, and joined in from a third angle. She put up a force shield strong enough to block them all. 

"I guess that will be that, then", Ben declared, "though the Stun variant is very useful to disable enemies without breaking them into pieces. It doesn't even hurt them. We can try again later." 

Fire was next. They traveled back to the quarry. There was some dry brush around so they gathered a few stacks of it. It was a tricky ability to use: hard to ignite, hard to control; a single Force-user was always on the brink of losing control of it - if he managed to spark a fire at all. This was an ability a Dyad should truly excel at. 

Rubbing air molecules together was the most direct way to ignite a flame. Rey adapted her Light-wisp ability to agitate the air at the center of her concentrated mote. It worked and she held a small flame. 

Ben did the same, then decided to find a way to light it from the Dark Side. To his surprise, he found that being with Rey had so calmed him he had no rage available to him. He walked over to her then picked her up in his arms and hugged her to his heart. He was free of the pain. He told her this. When the realization faded they sat down and pondered on what this meant: could they count on her anger alone?

"Ben," she said, "We need Kylo Ren. I have power, but you know how to use it."

"How do I tap into something that's gone?" he stated, and when she looked at his face, she was struck by the immense hope she had helped put there. "Remember where you got that rage in the first place. Remember who put it there."

"Snoke," he thought immediately. Yes, that certainly stirred something inside him. 

"Remember what he made you do."

"Yes," he thought, and the stirring swelled.

"Remember your father. Think of what this new Master would have you do: to me, to us, to the world. That's what I think of," she finished. 

"I killed my father," he said, and put the paralyzing guilt aside. "Snoke and the Sith tricked me, abused me. I will destroy the Last Sith." He got up. When she looked at him again, she realized what passion truly is. She watched him ignite a brush stack all at once, but that was nothing compared to the inferno he stirred in her now. She rushed at him, thinking only of melding with him. He was shaking with rage still, looking for the next thing to burn when he saw her look; there was that hunger again.

_ This is not the time _ , he thought, * _ it's too soon _ * he told her. 

* _ I don't care _ ,* was the answer, and he realized just how the Dark Rey was as real as that illusion had shown him. Dark Rey was for Kylo Ren, and they needed both for this combat. She reached for him and clawed at his shirt, and he grabbed her hair and pushed her down, tearing at the fasteners on her clothing. 

When they came back to base, they were bruised and battered, their clothes torn, bite marks and scratches all over them, but no shame. They held hands. People stopped in their tracks, staring. Had they fought? They emitted an energy that flowed out from them like radiation. Poe looked at Rey, eyebrow raised, then looked away, intimidated. The couple made for the showers. 

"They were surprised by a pair of Manka cats," was the official story.

In the evening, after the day's heat had cooled down, they had their team; the usual suspects: Poe, Chewbacca, Finn, Rose, and BB-8. Hux dispatched a ship with a full contingent aboard to meet them at Coruscant, then accompany them to Byss. Those few stops would be their last chances at training. The Falcon, the Bat shuttle and Poe's X-wing were their fleet. They could have hangared all three on the New Order Star Destroyer but not even Kylo felt comfortable with the idea. 

Getting to Coruscant would take a couple days; everyone would take turns piloting each ship. Everyone wanted to pilot the  _ Bat _ , to Ben's dismay. They were all ready: they would leave on the morrow. They made their goodbyes to Leia, to Hux, to the Droids, to the others. 

“Sometimes the only way I can accept the last seven years is by telling myself that Snoke had to train you in the Dark Side abilities just so you could beat the last Sith master. And that that was why I felt I had to stop my own Jedi training.” Leia Organa held her only son’s hand in hers, craning her head to look at his beautiful features, so much like Han, with her own brown eyes staring into hers. 

“Rey can’t be a Jedi either, you know,” he told her. 

“In a way, that makes  _ you  _ the Last Jedi,” she added. 

“I will teach her - and anyone else we find - both sides. To keep the balance.”

“I’m glad to hear you have better plans for the future.” She pressed herself in her big boy’s arms, hugging him as best she could. 

“I’ll come back, mom,” he choked out. 

**

On Coruscant, they met up with the resurgent-class ship  _ Audacity's _ captain, who had brought someone with him : a tall strong woman with a proud bearing and a chrome armor; Finn did a double take when he saw her. He knew her well. "Captain Phasma!" he exclaimed. "Major, now, Rebel Scum." They looked at each other. Finally she saluted him, and he in turn. They clasped forearms. 

"Well, met. I would join the General's personal guard," she announced. "If there is room for one more, that is." 

Ben looked at her: "I'm not really a general. Nor am I Supreme Leader, as it is. We all have our strengths here. I could use yours." 

"Thank you, sir. I will try to fit in with this rabble." 

Someone choked. 

"That was a joke." She made an ugly smile and they all had to laugh at the incongruity of it all. 

In the late morning, Ben had had to reach for his Kylo Ren persona to make Rey angry enough to Force-freeze him, and when Phasma intervened - surprised into the reflexive action of protecting her leader - she froze her too. He hadn't been gentle: he'd taunted her and then slapped her before everyone, and as he was about to slap her again she triggered the ability. For a moment, as she held him there, he feared he'd pushed her over the edge and she would choke him to death. But then she walked over to him and slapped him back before releasing both of them. He fell on his knees, signaling to Phasma that he was alright, as images of the Dark Rey in the throne-room flashed in his mind again: she was as dangerous as the fire they would use. 

Rey stomped off into the city. 

When she came back, late enough they had started to worry, she was bruised and dirty. Her eyes had that dark ember look. She walked into the ship: "I can do the  _ stun _ thing now," she said. "Don't ask". 

Judging by the look she gave them, she had tried - and failed - a few times before succeeding. 

Then they passed Byss and made for the Event Horizon of the Remnicore System.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm absolutely terrified of what comes next.


	23. The Core

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A way through the Event Horizon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a great advantage to create in this universe: physics laws be damned, I'll do it like I imagine it. XD

Anakin Skywalker:  _ *Did you find the way in, yet?* _

_ *It looks like just a pinprick on the map, it's such a small gap to pass through. How do we approach it? Hyper-speed or impulse?* _

_ *Hyper-speed. You'll have to punch through some kind of shield, like scar tissue. Once you're in, the Sith Master will be aware of your presence.* _

_ *Maker, what a small target. Do we all go through? All at the same time?* _

_ *The one that is strongest in the Dark side should go first, to cover for the other one. Your friends will have to join you after you have picked up its attention.* _

_ My friends, _ Ben Solo thought. 

They were floating in space, looking at what appeared to be an Event Horizon. From what they had managed to piece together, the Remnicore system was not exactly a Black Hole: it consisted of binary suns and a handful of dead planets. One of the stars was a super-massive dwarf about to go supernova, the other was in the process of collapsing into a Black Hole, but it was still in the throes of death. The stars were dim. The system was sucking the fire from the five other stars around it, giving it a malevolent corona. It was the Dark Sun of the Sith. Navigating it meant avoiding strands of energy stretched so thin as they spiraled inward they were practically invisible to their instruments. Yet hitting one would mean immediate destruction.

Ben Solo sat in a meditative trance on his  _ Bat  _ shuttle. Rey sat in the same state on the Falcon. They had a difficult choice to make: he was obviously the most trained one in the Dark, but the Light wielder would be the one most attacked. He should go first to make the way for them, but how much of him would be revealed, it was hard to tell. Now that they had reached a balance, if imperfect, between them, how could he hide his feelings for her?

_ *Don't.* _ Anakin again.

_ *Then I will be revealed as her protector.* _

_ *Don't protect her. Remember the Sith code: Passion gives me Strength. Strength gives me Power. Power gives me Victory* _

_ *To pass this test, a balance you cannot have. A dyad you cannot be.* _ A new voice.

_ *Master - Master Yoda?* _ The Jedi masters were welcoming him into their embrace again. If it wasn’t for the immediacy of their situation, he would cry. 

_ *The last of your Light, to Rey you will give.* _

_ *Young Rey. Your rage you will give up to him. You will give up Emotion to achieve Peace* _

_ *What does this mean, Master Yoda?*  _

_ *Pain and separation, it means. After, join you will again.* _

Ben Solo though of how they would go about this. He would have to go in boldly, bringing Rey as a prisoner, as some kind of gift. It would be like when they confronted Snoke. Rey agreed. She could be submissive if she wanted to. She'd trusted him then, she would trust him now. 

He put the little ship into hyper-drive and punched through to the other side. It felt like punching through human skin. 

As soon as he was through, he slowed to impulse and reversed thrusters, immobilizing the craft. He waited, senses alert: the darkness was streaked with energy strands that glowed a subdued light so faint it gave no color to anything. His ship hummed. He felt the Tor Valum register his presence. 

_ *I am here.* _ He announced coolly. 

It greeted him: * _ Welcome, Skywalker. We will meet at last. _ *

In his mind, he managed to isolate his communication with Rey, again using the "packet" method Luke had found for them. * _ I'm alive, _ * he told her. * _ He sensed me as soon as I came in _ .*

The Falcon suddenly appeared, just off to his port. Then Poe's X-wing above. They took a moment to get their bearings. 

"Look at this mess," exclaimed Poe. "Plasma strands everywhere. We'll have to grope our way around. Can you tell where to go?" 

"Coreward, I guess. It will be slow going until we adjust the instruments' sensitivity. Why don't we all dock together until we're further in?" 

With the  _ Bat _ shuttle attached, the quarters weren't so cramped. Holding bay 1 on the  _ Falcon _ had been repurposed with cots; the  _ Bat’s _ berth was absolutely off-limits. Rey and Rose worked the instruments to improve navigation; at this pace, it could take them several days to find their target. They'd had to adjust the heat generators too, it was deathly cold in the system. After some hours of tinkering, the first shift went to bed. Ben learned how to play holochess with Chewie again, winning once, Finn looking on dubiously. Poe looked at Phasma speculatively, then thought better of it. 

For Rey, the nightmares started.

She saw herself standing in a field of ash, her belly huge to bursting. After a moment she started giving birth to bloody, deformed stormtroopers that she was forced to kill. They ripped out of her body and as they crawled away she picked them up and snapped their necks. She heard herself laughing a monstrous laugh. When she picked one up to devour him, she startled awake. Ben rushed to her and cradled her in his arms. She threw up and cried and then she clenched her jaw and he felt that rage grow inside her. 

Of all the battles he was ready for, he had never imagined this form of torture for his Rey. His own rage built inside, but he was forced to contain it until they found this Being; he had his own nightmares to contend with.

He would see himself standing at the bottom of the little hill that led up to the throne. The Tor Valum sat upon it, observing them. Rey was on her knees, chained and collared. "You have brought the sacrifice," the raspy voice said. Sometimes, it was he who was the sacrifice. 

He broke free and woke. He was burning inside. 

As they got nearer the two stars, it was easier to navigate the streams of star flux. There was more light, a bluish glow from the dwarf, a dirty brown from the one that was collapsing. It looked like a rotten fruit. Every planet they had passed on their way was a lifeless, lightless husk. 

Between the two suns, a solitary planet, spinning in a tight circle, pulled between them. On the surface, great polar ice-caps competed for space with volcanoes; there were forests of dead trees and expanses of salt where an ocean had dried up, giant skeletons jutting out from under cracked mud, as if they were trying to crawl to another place, any other place. As they made their descent into the atmosphere, the sky was the most terrifying thing anyone could imagine, red and green with both suns at either side of the horizon before one dipped below as the other rose.

Surface probing had revealed a monumental network of vast underground channels. They landed near the entrance to one of them. They found the thin atmosphere was miraculously breathable but not for long, the air was sulphurous and they could barely keep from choking. 

Both the  _ Bat  _ and the  _ Falcon  _ were too big to travel inside the channels. They would have to pinpoint an area closer to their goal, and then continue on foot. This could be done with force-sensitivity, so Ben offered to scout ahead in the X-wing. "I'll lay low and wait for you to join me," he promised after Rey gave him a dirty look. He saw the others were also giving Rey a dirty look in case she thought to join him without them. To go on this mission, he needed a volunteer to accompany him: all raised their hand.

He had a flash of the vision the Master had imposed upon him. He chose Phasma, knowing her devotion; knowing he had to be ruthless. He missed his mask again. They climbed in, strapped in BB-8 and took off. For the first few minutes of their flight, the usually taciturn Phasma exclaimed at the wonder of sitting in the famed Dameron's X-wing, and they chuckled at that, then they looked on silently at the kilometres of ravaged lands below them. Life had thrived here at some point, for a good expanse of time too. A civilization had risen and fallen, had progressed enough to colonize its other planets, then travelled beyonds its stars to systems beyond.

And then, that civilization had collapsed upon itself. Could it have been the dying of the stars? Hard to imagine: such phenomena take thousands of years to complete. Even with the technology they could see remnants of, there should be animals and people left behind. There should be oceans and vegetations still alive, if stagnant or stunted. Ben reached out with his Force sensitivity. There was some...some kind of life still there, he finally felt, low below the surface, it was faint, without precise outlines.

As they flew overland, he finally felt it: the Presence they were seeking, it was holed up in some kind of pit, or crater. He flew around looking for a connecting tunnel they could use to get to it: flying directly into the pit would be impossible with the bigger ship. He flew in a spiral, getting closer and closer to his target until Phasma tapped him on the shoulder with a stern "Sir", snapping him out of the trance he was falling into. They found a tunnel that was near enough their target, and near enough the surface they could just blast an access to it. There was no point in being discreet about it. The monster already knew they were coming to meet it. 

_ *I found it* _ he told Rey. 

_ *We're coming, _ * was the anwer.


	24. The Bond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On what holds us together.

As they waited for the rest of the crew to join them, Phasma spoke up. "I remember when I realized it was time to change," she said.

"Oh? When?" Ben prompted her. 

"That book of poetry you had in your quarters. It intrigued me. When Hux gave it to me to give back to you, I had a look at it." She was slightly embarrassed, "I paged through it some and then fell on a passage that seemed to have been read many times, the way the book would open easily to it." 

Now it was Ben's turn to be embarrassed. He took a breath and asked: "Do you remember the passage?"

"Yes," she said, and she recited:

>   
>  _The Sky was lit by the splendour of the moon  
>  So powerful I fell to the ground  
> Your love has made me sure  
> I am ready to forsake this worldly life  
> and surrender to the magnificence  
> of your Being_   
> 

Then she added: "The Force holds the universe together, they tell us. We thought the First Order held Civilization together. But for us mortals, it is Love that holds us together. I remembered being in love, once." 

"Thank you, Phasma. For reminding me," the Dark warlord answered gratefully. 

When the Falcon and the _Bat_ landed, they found the weak spot in the planet's crust where they could blast a way in. They only needed a small passage, but it took a lot out of them to mine it. Finally, their little tunnel opened into a great channel. They decided to rest again before advancing. If only for a few hours. They slept in two shifts, but everyone had nightmares. At one point, they had to catch Chewie sleepwalking out of their sight; Rey went to get him, softly nudging him awake. Out at the edge of darkness, she bent over and puked again, doing so as silently as she could. Chewie looked at her concernedly, then suddenly sniffed at her. 

His eyes widened. "<Oh!>" he exclaimed.

"What? It's just nerves," she said. "Don't say anything to Ben. It would distract him."

"<I won't,>" he promised. 

The channel they travelled along was wide enough for the X-wing to fit, if dangerously close. Vehicles must have travelled in it a long time ago, like some kind of underground highway. There were occasional side tunnels branching off, inscriptions on the wall instructing them of their destination in a language unknown to them. The middle of the passage was filled with calf-deep muck. Some parts of the tunnels had collapsed. They passed burned or rusted out wrecks of long abandoned vehicles, some of beautiful flowing designs made for these rounded passages. 

The air was putrid. They saw occasional movement in some of the drainage holes, light reflecting on beady eyes or iridescent chitin shells low to the ground. That was the lifeforms he had detected: bugs, and rat-like creatures. They held lanterns up high as they carefully advanced.

Chewie and BB-8 both stopped and hushed them at the same time. "What?" 

Then they heard it. A low buzz or a hum. Getting louder, nearer. "I got a bad feeling about this." said Ben. 

When the swarm came out of the drain gate they were ready, or as much as they could be. The mad creatures ran at them at a pace they couldn't hope to outrun, so Ben and Rey put up a Force-shield around the eight of them, their backs to the wall to make it easier. Rey's idea of casting a net grid to support a thin but smooth shield worked well. The critters jumped at them but couldn't reach them. The bubble they had forged reached to the floor, but the top was weak. Chewie had to crouch down. There were hundreds of the creatures, clawing at the shield. The group was pinned down. 

"We can hold them for a while," Rey grunted with the effort, "but not forever." 

"We need fire," Poe offered. "What do we have to make it?" BB-8 showed his little torch. 

"It's a start buddy, but we'll need more than that."

"One of the battery cells could supply fuel," offered Rose. "I'll open one up. Finn, help me with this." 

As they were picking apart a cell-pack they saw some of the creatures managing to climb to the top of the bubble by pushing on their brethren below them. Raising the net to cover the top meant weakening the rest of the structure. Tightening the weave to under the creature's head's diameter was beyond Rey's ability. A few made it to the top, and as their weight accumulated, some began to ease through and fall onto them. Poe and Chewie took out their knives and stabbed them. They were being overwhelmed. 

"Fuck the fuel cell," said Ben. "Rats burn. Rey, on my signal, we are going to pop the bubble to Force push them. BB-8, keep that flame going, I need a source. Ready? Now!"

They dissolved the shield and let its energy wash out from them like a wave. The animals tumbled away. Then, with a fluid motion, Ben took the little light and grew it into a gust of fire. He spun around and painted a swath of red-orange into an arc around them. Rey watched him and joined in after a second. The creatures screamed and died. Some managed to scurry away into the night, lighting the darkness as they ran, their greasy fur on fire. Some of the scum on the floor caught fire, as did the cobwebs and the varnish on the walls of the tunnel they were in, peeling from the ceiling and falling on top of them. They beat at each other's clothes to put the fires out. Obviously, Chewie was the worst hit. The smell that filled the air then was even worse.

"Damn! That was close," exploded Finn. 

Rey moved to help Chewie but then beckoned to Ben. "Your turn," she said.

After such a rush of fire inside him, Ben had a hard time coming down, but Uncle Chewie needed his immediate attention. There was a knot of remorse within him, threatening to sap his light and break his concentration, until Chewie looked at him through clenched teeth and nodded for him to proceed: 

"<Better this than being eaten alive by rats,>" he said. 

Ben put his hand on Chewie's hairy chest and began to concentrate. First, he would alleviate the pain. That was easy enough. What followed was not so easy. Memories of his childhood rushed up from uncle Chewy's mind and for a moment, Ben almost pulled back. He took a deep breath and held on. While he went from burn to burn on the Wooky's body, he revisited his childhood as Chewy remembered it, and as the years advanced, he saw that the wonder had progressively been replaced with despair and doubt. Even Chewbacca wondered what he could have done to help his friend's son, and felt responsible for him losing the Light. 

After a few minutes, he felt Rey's Light come into his mind. * _It's ok, Ben, you can't heal that. You've done all you can for now._ * 

When he came out of the healing trance and looked up, everyone was crying, not just him.

"I'm going back to the ships," said Rose. She'd had enough. "Someone has to survive and tell the rest of the Galaxy of the outcome of this. I'm of no other use to you here." 

"Finn, you go with her," said Poe. "Chewie, you too." Finn made to protest, but there was no arguing the situation. They were not fighting soldiers with blasters, and someone should accompany Rose and Chewie to make sure they made it back safely. 

"Here, take this," Rey twisted apart her light-staff and gave him half. "Just in case."

*

The crew had cautiously half-jogged, half-walked for another hundred galactic standard meters when Ben stopped them all. 

“Oh _no_ ,” he breathed as silently as he could, shuddering. Then he moved them all to the nearest abandoned transport, keeping his eyes focused in the direction they were travelling. 

Phasma took out her metal spike and extended it, silent. Poe checked his blaster’s safety, signing to BB-8 to dim his lights. The two officers knew Kylo Ren enough to realize this was an even greater danger than what they had faced before if it unsettled the Dark Lord. Rey watched Ben intently. 

He turned to her, eyes closed and brow furrowed in concentration. “Feel that,” he told her in a low voice. 

Rey closed her eyes and stilled her breath. 

There was a manifest Darkness moving into the area with them. It was solid. It had a breath, a metallic smell. It was moving closer, growing larger, into something larger than their little group, until it split into three distinct forms. About thirty meters away they became visible. 

They looked like long-legged lizards, or naked dogs with impossibly long tails prolonging a spine-crested dorsum. Wicked horns and spiky beards adorned their heads. Their spine and horns glowed, bioluminescent, enough to illuminate their whole grey-tan bodies. Close-set red eyes shone with yellow light. Their sharp fangs, bunched shoulders and clawed feet unmistakably marked them as predators.

There were three of them, a mating pair and a yearling. The male stood at the shoulder as tall as a man: with head raised, easily as tall as Chewie. 

“SithSpawn. Tuk’ata... venomous. Rey,” Ben spoke barely above a whisper, looked at the two fighters with them, then made a decision: “with Phasma. Poe, with me.” He hesitated, before adding: “Kill the big male first, spare the pup at long as you can. Wait here for my signal.”

Then the DarkSider walked purposefully towards the pack. Squaring his shoulders, he spoke haltingly but firmly in a sibilant language the rest of them could only guess was Sith. 

He was trying to impress the adults into leaving them alone. Rey heard the exchange inside her head, not quite in words - Sith was gibberish to her - but in impressions, as animals would speak :

“Master...feed us?” It was an eager request; full of senses that smelled, heard and saw their little group, but hesitated before the powerful Dark Lord facing it.

“Go your way, we seek the Master of this place.” Ben - Kylo in this moment - commanded. 

Rey put her hands on the arms of the tall warrior and the bold pilot beside her to try and steady them.

She felt a hungry hiss as an answer from the female. She quickly opened and rummaged through her pack, hoping to find something to offer, then remembered the carnage they had left only a short distance behind. 

“Let us pass and I will not enslave you. I will not take the female.” 

Kylo Ren was challenging the male. 

The youngling was moving near them, sniffing the air with unconcealed interest. Poe was getting ready to blast it, but Phasma pointed at its dripping maw. _Venomous_ , she mouthed, _wait_. She looked at her Leader expectantly. 

Kylo raised his hand towards the glowering hound’s head; the struggle was engaged. 

Rey turned her attention towards the grey-blue female, to communicate the smell of the cooked scavengers just ahead if they travelled only a little farther. She walked from their hiding place towards the female, Phasma close to her, Poe stepping out as well, moving towards Kylo but weapon alternately training on either adult, hesitant. 

Rey was trying to soothe mother and child, and was having some success, but the female was studying the Darksider speculatively. The SithSpawn were bred to respond to Dark Side Masters, the call to follow one was an atavism. Yet, Rey could feel this one’s intense attachment to her mate. 

For a moment, they all stood on the cusp of balance, and it seemed, judging by the way the immense creature facing Kylo seemed to want to bow, that they would pass safely, until Rey felt something pass through the bond. 

_*Get ready.*_ Kylo was not aiming for submission. Rey turned to her friends, giving them a quick warning hand signal. 

Kylo lit his lightsaber, dodging to the side, out of the Hound’s sudden snap’s range. He drew the beast away from the little group, taunting it with a guttural snarl. 

Rey reached for the Force as if for a club, brandishing it artlessly and stunned the female, while the youth bound on Phasma, catching her arm, its viscous muzzle gnashing uselessly at her armor. The pup was as big as the warrior women, toppling her. 

Poe ran to assist the ex-Supreme Leader, as had been decided. He lifted his blaster, aiming for the open throat as the thing lunged to rip into the Darksider that had betrayed them. He shot but hit the shoulder, doing little damage as the angle was wrong and the bolt ricocheted. 

Rey lit her own saber and smacked the youth twice, causing it to back off Phasma, a smell of charred flesh filling the air. It yelped in pain and ran to its mother, who was unmoving on the ground. 

Kylo charged at the beast, trying to reach its throat with his saber, trying to control it with the Force, but the thing was mad now, rearing out of range and resisting, itself trying to assert dominance over this smallish male, Darksider or no. Kylo felt it had not been under the thumb of a Master Sith for some time, but had no time to ponder on that negligence. Again the creature snapped at him, but he lifted his crimson blade to parry, and the Tuk’ata bit on it and burned its mouth, letting a sharp cry of pain. Poe shot at it again, this time hitting a thigh, and the thing whipped its tail at him, swiping his feet out from under him. 

Phasma picked herself up, and seeing the stunned female laying on the ground, sprinted quickly over and brought her pike down on the female’s head with a grunt, spearing it and killing it instantly. Then she turned back to the pup, but sensing the battle lost, it turned tail and ran to the nearest exit, howling.

“Stop it!” Phasma hollered at Rey, and, jolted into action, Rey again gathered the Force into a fist to grasp the lanky youth, who first slipped free and bound away again before the Jedi managed to catch it and hold it in place. 

Kylo barely glanced in the women’s direction to assert their progress, then marched forward on his prey, delivering blow after blow, trying to herd it into the wall behind it. The Spawn and the Sith scholar each came away with wounds from that spar, the hound with an injured front talon it could no longer rest on, Kylo with a gouge on his outer thigh he had only minutes to attend to before the poison spread. Seeing this, Poe shot again, a good one, blasting through the thing’s gaping maw, tearing out part of its throat. Kylo lunged forward and put the saber through its great breast. 

The thing thrashed mightily, cursing the Force Masters that had abandoned then betrayed them. Kylo rushed to its side, taking the ugly head in his hands and bringing his forehead to touch with the Spawn’s. 

It died soon after that, and Kylo rose again, his eyes sad and faraway, until he realized the pup was still alive. He walked towards it, passed its dead mother, to stand before the trapped youth. 

Rey was crying. Phasma was ready, so was Poe. 

“Rey,” Ben started, he was coming down now, shaking as the adrenalin left him.“I was hit, Rey, I need your help now.”

That moved her. She looked at Phasma, who nodded before putting her pike through the Spawn’s eye. It died quickly. Phasma and Poe proceeded to a visual inspection of each other, rinsing and wiping off the whelp’s saliva where it had splashed on the chrome-clad woman’s armor. Poe had a nasty bruise on his shin where he had been whipped; he limped, but the thick leather or his boots had resisted puncture. 

Ben sat down abruptly and Rey sat with him, and put her hands on him. Here was another challenge: a short gash, but poisoned. 

Rey closed her eyes and let her awareness reach inside Ben's body, moving her hand to rest directly over the wound. Against her palm, the venom’s Force component writhed like maggots digging their way in, and Rey suddenly turned to wretch. When she managed to clamp down on her nausea, she used the force to pull at the blood that had been contaminated, much like pulling on water, then let her love for Ben turn into fear, then rage, and Ben gasped in surprise under her touch. 

She could feel each and every tendril of the Sith beast’s venom: they were numerous, but she reached for each, one at a time and pinched and killed it, ripping its Force signature out of her lover’s flesh. 

“Ben…” the Scavenger said after a while, “help me out here. There’s too many of them.”

The tall man put his hand over hers, learning from her, then joined in picking every little worm out, even digging deep into tissue, hissing and groaning from the pain. When every one had been ripped out, they joined their energies, once again using the Light, to close and heal the deceptively small wound. 

When it was done, the last known Force-wielders sat for a while, dazed and perspiring from the effort. 

Then they got up and rejoined the others who were looking at the strange creatures’ bodies.

“Nasty,” said Poe. 

“Why did we have to kill them?” Rey asked suddenly. “It was bowing to you. You could have spared it.”

Ben Solo looked at her, seeing the depth her compassion could reach. Luke and him had gone on expeditions to find and kill SithSpawn; it was almost part of the Jedi job description. His grandfather Anakin had been a renowned Spawn-Killer... until he had subjugated a few for his personal use. Just now, he had felt victory over the big Tuk’ata male when it had bowed to him, a victory which would have granted him the female and the pup’s obedience as well. Tempting - as all Dark things are tempting - but dangerous: it would have created a corrupting bond between Master and Spawn. Killing them had been the ...enlightened thing to do. 

“Rey,” he finally answered, “ “We can’t keep Sithspawn, they’re not pets. And they can’t be left free. They would have called a whole pack of them on us. We’d be dead.”

“Why did you touch foreheads with the one you killed, then?” All three looked at him at her question. 

There was an embarrassed silence. Atonement had daunting conditions. 

“The Sithspawn are creatures twisted by Sith alchemy. They lead tortured lives. These ones were “free” to a certain extent, but they were also abandoned to their Dark longings. The Master here - the Tor Valum - is hidden. It’s strange.” Ben hesitated, then continued: “So I… I asked for forgiveness for betraying him and his mate, and their pup. But we had no choice.” 

Once everyone was ready, they continued their way to the end of the tunnel, seeing a sickly light ahead. 

*

The tunnel finally opened up into a large open area. The top curved in on itself to form a partly opened dome, and light from the blue sun shone down. There were structures around them, mostly circular in architecture, some many stories high, arranged in a star-shaped pattern; near where they had come in, the structures seemed to climb up the wall and the four of them thought they might be in some kind of hive-like village. Poe shuddered at the idea: he had disturbed a nest of giant hornets during one of his adventures, and had barely survived. Only one of the dog-sized creatures had stung him, shallowly at that, and it had put him in intensive care for weeks. He signed for them to become very still so they could listen.

It was deathly quiet. Ben and Rey used their Force-sensitivity to sense what lay ahead. What they were seeking was near the center of the cavern-like area. 

It was time to get ready for their parts. 

Phasma and Poe would hold Rey as if she was a prisoner. Ben made a diamond of his love again, and hid it deep within his heart. Now Kylo Ren again, he carried the soft-metal dagger on his hip. BB-8 would remain silent. Beyond that, best not to make plans. Phasma immediately found a pair of binds in her bag and attached Rey's wrists together. She ripped off Rey's left arm leather strip, and made a loop to put around her neck. Finally, she pushed Rey into a low obstacle so she fell face first into it, splitting her lip and bruising her knees. Once she was done, Rey looked suitably mistreated and everyone was upset and enraged. They continued forward. 

The floor of the chamber was covered in organic matter that sometimes squelched and sometimes crunched underfoot, and as they moved forward the cover became thicker and thicker. Poe realized that the stuff was the corpses of beetles and small birds; further in, some of those rat-like creatures. As they advanced, the corpses changed to that of bigger creatures, dog-like, and finally, humanoids or other galaxy species they knew. Thousands upon thousands of them. The pit was a charnel house. It was a boneyard deepening as they got closer, until they made it to a steeper hill they were loath to climb. They would have to wade hip deep in cadavers. Atop it was what appeared to be the stump of a tree. 

As they stood there, confused by the seemingly deserted look of the place where they expected to meet their Master, the hill started to shift and reach up. Buried below the mound of detritus and cadavers was the creature they had awakened as if from dormancy. It rose and finally broke through a tangled web of filament and leathery remnants. As if birthed from a horrible womb, a head and upper body became apparent, but remained attached to the hill that bore it. 

The Last Sith Master had a huge triangular head perched upon a long leathery neck; it had sloped shoulders that carried two pairs of visible appendages. Its face had many tiny eyes, some of them filmed over as if they were blind. Its noze was more or less a double slit between its eyes and its mouth. That mouth appeared like a short, muscular tube lined with razor sharp, incurved teeth. A mouth made for attaching itself to a victim and sucking it dry. At the sight of it, Poe and Phasma froze in shock; Rey began to wail in terror. BB-8 shut down.

*

The Tor Valum sat observing them; they could see there was a beaten-down track that led up to its stump-like figure. It's horrible mouth-piece retracted somewhat and it produced that raspy, barely intelligible speech. 

"Welcome, Skywalker. I have waited years for you." Its many eyes settled on each of them in turn. Its nose-slit opened and took deep draughts of the air, tasting the fear and revulsion none of them could hide. 

Kylo stood his ground; on his right, Rey was on her knees, bound and collared. Just seeing her in that state stoked his rage. Phasma was on his other side, calm and resolute, the rest of the crew had stayed back a distance. 

"You have brought the sacrifice," the raspy voice said.

"I have" he answered, proudly, missing the security of his mask more than ever. He stepped forward. 

"She is a fitting gift for what I have to give you." it said in that gravelly voice

"There is nothing you can give me that I will not take from you myself." Kylo Ren was arrogant; the Sith understood only power. 

"Is that so? You do not know what I have to offer then: life eternal. I have been here for 7000 years. How do you think I have managed it?"

"Tell me." He moved another step forward. 

"I will show you". The thing lifted its spindly hand towards Phasma. She lifted up off the ground, apparently in the grip of a Force-choke. Kylo kept his emotions in check. She was sworn to his service, this would be her sacrifice. He watched, stoically. The choke turned to something different. Then, slowly at first, tendrils of Light started to exude from Phasma under the pressure. After a few had gathered in the air about her, they started to travel, like rivulets, to the horrid thing sat on its throne-like stump. When they reached it, it breathed them in, sucking loudly. His loyal bodyguard shook and flailed with the pain, screaming, until there was nothing but a rattle in her throat before hanging limply in mid-air. The Master dropped her like a skin bag of garbage. She was grey. Poe cried out. Rey screamed. Kylo moved up the path. 

"This is the Power I would teach you. To drain the Light out of any before you. After you have proven worthy to enter my service."

"What service would you require of me, if you have that power?"

"You will bring me what I require: more sacrifices to feed my power. Do you accept?"

"Yes." he answered quickly, moving another step forward. "I will enter your service."

"Prove it. Break her."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad I decided to add Sith spawn. They're another monster the Dyad - and the Crew - can agree to work on, in this fic and the next.


	25. The Bond, part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The things we do for love.

_*It wants me to torture you.*_

_*I can take it.*_

In his mind he saw what the Master wanted: this went beyond physical pain, it wanted demented degradations. He saw that he would have to strip her naked and present her to its inspection. He would have to strike her if she resisted. He would have to rip out handfuls of her hair, cut her face, break her bones.

He would have to take her and rape her from behind, pressing her face into the squamous ground and then force her to take him in her mouth, until she choked. He would have to do these things, and take pleasure in it. Then the Master would see him as truly worthy, and give him that power.

* _I can take it_ ,* she said. And he felt her reach for the Light to give her serenity to endure the trial, so that he could move close enough to turn against their enemy and kill it.

_No. I have not come this far into the Light only to snuff it out._

"No." he said.

" _Ha!_ You have true feelings for this girl, like when I first found you. You are weak."

"I am not weak, I am resisting your command." Ben started, gaining strength as he expressed his integrity. "What are you? Look at you, out in the middle of nowhere. You are no real threat to anyone or anything anymore. You've sucked the life out of everything within reach but there is nothing left, is there? If you hadn't _tricked_ me into coming here, what would you have done? You can't go anywhere... we could just leave you now. You would eventually dry up and turn to dust."

"If you won't submit, you are of no use to me." The Tor raised its hand, and Ben braced himself to counter the attack.

Within seconds, he understood his mistake. The thing fed on the Light inside. His little diamond felt like it was about to rip right out of his heart. It felt like he was being drained of the breath from his lungs, of the water from his body. Within seconds, he was blinded and deafened. He detected some motion around him but was unable to process what was going on. He thought maybe his sacrifice meant Rey would survive, but dreaded what survival would mean for her.

Rey felt something terrible rise in her, then ignite. She could not advance closer to this monstrous creature, but she could rip it from the ground and tear it apart. She planted her feet and pulled at the creature's stump-like dais before her, shifting it slightly, then she pushed it. Then she pulled it again. She would uproot this thing and throw it into the pits of hell below them. Push, and pull. Again. Her motion was so powerful the Tor was forced to turn its attention to her and interrupt its drain on Solo.

"What's this? What a source of Darkness you have! I thought to only drink from the well of Light inside you, but you are just as powerful as this one !" She gave him another push, and this time, something crackled inside her and lightning charged at her fingertips. Before she could discharge it towards him, the Tor grasped her.

"My, here's another surprise! So dangerous! So _excitingly_ dangerous!" it held her in a Force Fist.

The Master brought her closer to its face so it could see her better. Bringing her closer to her lover in doing so. To where they were almost touching. That was when Anakin Skywalker intervened. He freed their hands and clasped them together. The moment they touched, Ben loosed the Light inside him to match Rey's Darkness. There was a detonation. The creature was rocked back, while Poe and BB-8 were flung a dozen feet from where they had been standing in transfixed terror.

The Dyad dropped to their feet. Ben ignited his Lightsaber. Rey called and ignited hers in the same movement. They ran up the rest of the way up just as the creature was recovering from its surprise.

 _"The Prime Jedi!"_ it croaked in shock. It raised its hands to gather lightning on them. Rey barely had time to weave a shield, while Ben yelled "Fire!" at Poe and BB-8 behind him, but the two were still stunned by the concussion wave they had just sustained.

The lightning struck each individually, the shield barely holding up for a moment. Shock ran through them, burning nerve and muscle alike.

*Cross your sabers* A voice barely perceptible within the crackling of energy ripping through their bodies.

Serenity give me strength

Rey let her arm fall across her body, tipping over, until her pristine blue blade hit Ben's crazy red saber with a shriek. Where they met, the blades turned purple. With a whine, the lightning reflected back onto the Monster. It sustained a good flash of it before falling limply on its side.

The two fell on their knees. Ben was weakest. The drain had cost him. He looked at Rey. "Burn it, burn all of it".

They parted, slightly.

The Creature was not dead, it had merely feigned it. It waited for an opening such as this. With a supreme effort, it picked up Ben Solo and flung him as far from Rey as it could. Then it picked up Rey again and pulled her into its grasp. Wrapping its spindly appendages around her, it extended its sucker-like mouth towards her face. Rey barely managed to put up her hands between herself and the slimey, obscene tube snaking toward her. Ben sprang to his feet. He was too far to reach her. He opened his mind and screamed

_*Take it!*_

Rey felt something fill her hand. It was the Dagger of Mortis. She grabbed it with both hands and pushed the soft grey blade into the slit in the Monster's face. Energy coursed through her and for a moment she thought she had made a mistake. The Force pulsed up and down the blade, inside the Creature then back out again, alternatively trading her Light for its Darkness, and she was flooded with visions of acquiring the Power it had promised Kylo Ren, of leaving this place and ravaging world after world with an insatiable Hunger.

_There is no Light without the Dark._

_There is no Dark, without the Light._

Rey pushed back. She pushed the Dark back inside the Last Sith Master. It craved the Light and was stealing hers by pushing its Darkness inside her. She pushed it back, and then pushed more in, then pushed everything she had in. She twisted the Blade in her hand and jerked it out, severing the channel between them. The creature swelled, threw its ugly head back in a silent scream.

Then its head exploded.

Rey fell in the rotting mass at its foot, lifeless. Ben felt a sudden silence and for a second, it stunned him. Then he ran up the hill as fast as he could, Poe right behind him. When he reached her he kneeled and let out a cry so heart-wrenching, Poe was stupefied. They picked her up. She was dead.

"No no no"

_*No no no*_

_*Heal her.*_ It was Yoda.

_*She's dead! I can't heal dead!*_

_*Reach inside and feel her. Is she really dead?*_

_*I will try*_

_*Do, or do not. There is no try.*_

Ben Solo closed his eyes and recited the Grey Jedi code like a mantra. He let his awareness travel inside her. Her breath had stilled. Her heart had stopped. The blood no longer ebbed through her body. He was so empty, he only wanted to join her in death. He started to let himself fade away. Then he heard it.

It was faint. It was very fast. It was tiny. It was another heartbeat, inside her.

He sobbed aloud. Poe felt something greater than grief was happening. "What is it?" He asked him. "Ben, can you do something?" The pilot felt horribly helpless.

"She's pregnant." Ben whispered.

A life for a life.

He started to channel his Life-Force into her, like she had shown him. He sent it tingling along the nerves around her heart, giving it a sudden shock.

It pulsed. A single heartbeat.

Poe looked on as Ben's breathing slowed and the blood drained from his face. He heard Rey inhale when Ben exhaled. Suddenly, he understood that his old enemy would die to save them. He knew how he could help.

"Ben!" he shook him. "Take from me! I'm right here! Take from me!" he sat down before him, offering to create a circle with their hands.

 _*Take your friend's offer, Ben, you are not alone.*_ Luke.

Ben took Poe's free hand in his. He put himself in a calm state. Poe's other hand supported Rey's head.

After a brief hesitation, Ben reached for the flow of the Force inside Poe. It was a delicate process. Poe was strong with life, he was not injured in any real way. Pulling some of it away, he let it flow through him, even as he felt a surprising pleasure at taking it into himself first. His mind grasped the horrible seduction this power had. Then he gave Rey's heart more pulses and more life. It seemed to take hours, but it must have been less that minutes when Rey started breathing on her own again.

As they sat in rotting garbage, a wind started to pick up and white light found and blinded him.

_This is how I would die into the love I have for you: as pieces of cloud dissolve in sunlight._

Ben fell into darkness.

*

He had a flash of laying on the deck of the _Bat_ , then blackness again.


	26. Recovery

He heard his mother's voice. She was talking in a low tone, with Hux. Then there was silence in the darkness again. The next time he came to, he saw Poe sitting in a chair across the room, with an unread book opened in his lap, staring out the dark window. He had a few stitches from cuts and bruises, but was obviously in good health. There was that. 

Ben Solo let out a croak: "Rey?" 

Poe got right up to see him, smiled. "Hey buddy, we made it."

_Buddy?_

"Rey?" A bit clearer this time.

"Rey's good. She's recovering too. You saved her life."

It worked. 

" _We_ did." Ben said. "Thank you." he added. Then he remembered: "The...the..."

"The baby? Doctor said it should be fine."

The baby. "I have to get up." he tried to sit up, couldn't. He was encased in a bacta-suit. "I have to see her."

"Whoa, wait a minute Ben. She's sleeping right now. It's the middle of the graveyard shift. Give it the rest of the night, okay? Besides, you're plugged in." 

A medic walked in. "Ah, I see the Supreme Leader is awake." 

"The Sup- where am I? How long?" 

"On board the Audacity, sir. About three days. You're doing good, considering you died once yourself. Here, this will ease the pain" and he went under again. 

*

When he woke again, Chewbacca greeted him. He had patches and a few bald spots but was otherwise unhurt. He opened the door and called out: "<He's awake !>"

Leia walked in to see her son. There was such a smile on her face, he almost broke out in tears again. "Mom," he said. He didn't know what to say, or where to start. 

"Hush," she said. "Doctor says you should be up by the end of the day. They'll have a look at your skin, see how it's healed. They're confident, though, same as with Rey. If there's no infection, you could be out by tomorrow. Just don't touch your face." She took his hand in hers, but didn't kiss him. My face? He reached for his face. 

"I said don't touch your face!" She grabbed his other hand, held it firmly. 

"Rey." He paused. "Mom. We - is it true?" He saw her face fall and his heart sank. "Well, Ben, the doctor's a bit worried right now. She survived a great shock. Chances are the… _the fetus_ " - she wouldn't call it "the baby" - "took important damage. Irreversible damage. There will be more tests today."

Chewie made a low whine.

"Is she awake?" 

"More or less. They're keeping her on the edge of sedation." Two medics came in; it was time to see how his healing was coming along. They politely made it clear it was time for Leia to leave.

"Mom," he called out. "Tell - " but she and Chewie were out the door.

The next hour was torture. They broke open the suit and proceeded to check and clean what seemed like most of his upper body. There would be little scarring, thanks to the quality of the bacta they used, but healing skin meant itchy, fragile skin he couldn't scratch. If he did, he would definitely scar. Especially on his face. They decided he needed to be left to the open air, to let the skin dry. They removed some tubing. No visitors for the next six hours. 

***

Rose and Finn - and Chewie with confirming nods and grunts - were kept busy telling every one that came to ask about "The Rescue of Kylo Ren" (and the others). Hux demanded an official transcript for the records, of course. 

Their return trip back to the shuttles turned into a dead run as they picked up another swarm of rats along the way. They managed to get up the gangway to the Bat with only a dozen rats getting in before the hatch shut. Killing them took a few minutes, leaving them full of bite marks nonetheless. As they waited, trapped in Ben's ship, they saw the blue sun go down and the brown one rise. It made for the ugliest sunset and sunrise they had ever seen. When BB-8's distress signal came in, they took off and found the opening crater the droid had located for them within minutes. The Bat could fit through the opening, if barely, by folding up its wings and relying on thrusters. What they saw on the ground when they ran out was a landscape of nightmares. 

They found all five of them on top of a putrid mountain of detritus: Phasma dead, Poe and Rey barely able to stand, Ben comatose; BB-8 had put on an impressive display of lights and whistles to guide them in. Chewie picked up his nephew, Rose helped Poe while Finn carried Rey. They sped back to the shuttle. On the way there Ben's heart failed and Rose immediately tore out the med assist tech to revive him where Chewie dumped him onto the deck. The shuttle had top-of-the-line tech. Chewie started back out again to get Phasma's body when the ship's instruments started warning them: the brown dwarf's collapse was accelerating, as if whatever had been holding it together had suddenly given out. They had minutes to get off-planet and into hyperspace.

Poe and Chewie took the controls, while Finn continued with Ben, knowing the tech better than Rose, who instead started lathering the bacta on Rey's body like it was turkey baste. After a couple minutes Ben's heart started again and everyone sighed with relief, then Rose spread the bacta on Ben's body too. They made it out of the crater, then off planet, and as soon as they saw an unhindered stretch of space, they jumped out of the system. A wave of light pushed them forward. One sun had finally fallen into the other, causing a supernova to suddenly bloom into existence. Poe's X-Wing and the Millenium Falcon were lost, along with crates of sacred documents and relics. Whatever they had come there to kill was surely dead. 

When they made it to the Audacity, the medical team was ready and waiting. 

Poe told of Major Phasma's sacrifice in the best way possible - without the atrocious screaming - to her still-living squad-mates. Hux planned a ceremony in her honour, to happen as soon as all of the heroes could stand again. 

**

When they finally let Ben leave his bed, he went straight for Rey's room. He could see her only if he didn't disturb her, and only for a few minutes. She was not to get up. When she saw him, she raised her burned hand weakly and he dragged the chair over to sit right with her. She was still covered with bandages soaked in bacta, but on a lesser portion of her body. There were a few spots on her face, and her hair had burned off or been shaved like his. All on all, they both looked terrible. He took her least damaged hand in his. 

"We did it Rey. We killed a god."

She looked at him, pensive. "He was the loneliest god in the galaxy. We freed him from his pain." Ben winced at the words, recalling his own pain, barely a year ago. If that. 

They sat in silence, for a while, something unspoken hanging between them: hope, fear. Looking at the stars on the holo on the wall. "We saved it all," she said.

"I don't know that he was that powerful after all. You certainly saved me, thought."

"I did, didn't I? You certainly were in need of saving, Mr. Kylo Ren."

"What? I rescued you from that dried up rock you called home." 

"I was doing perfectly fine on that rock. I had my own home, I had a job and everything until YOU showed up." They laughed and the medic came in, looking grim. She kicked Ben out. 

For a minute he stood in the corridor outside her door, looking at the white tiling around him. It felt so sterile. He wanted color. He went back to his room, sat cross-legged on the bed. Put himself in a meditative state.

 _*Uncle Luke?*_ he called.

 _*Ben. You made it, you killed the Last Sith Master. That we know of.*_ He added sarcastically. 

_*The Jedi are no more.*_ There was sadness in the fallen Jedi’s tone. 

_*There is only the Force.*_

_*You accomplished what I could not.* Anakin._

_*Thank you, Grandfather. He kept calling me Skywalker, why?*_

_*I think he lost track of time, out there on his own. He expected me, remember. Or maybe it was part of his hubris, to think he would master a Skywalker.*_

_*Master a Skywalker, no one can*_ that was Yoda. _*You did not take my advice, young Solo.*_

Ben thought back to what the Tor had demanded as proof of his servitude; his mind recoiled in horror.

 _*I couldn't do it, Master Yoda. Not just for Rey, but for me. Putting out the light like that...I could not have fought him from just the Darkness*_ he remembered suddenly the crazy seduction that final Dark power had had on him, when he used it to pass life from Poe to Rey. 

_*Hmm. You did not trust Rey to have enough Light, did you?*_

Ben thought about that before he answered. _*Not so much the Light than that she needed her own Darkness to defeat greater Darkness. I needed to have my own Light. It was the balance that made us strong enough to defeat it. Together*_

_*Hmm. Then the lesson, you have learned; the teacher, you have become.*_

**

He had more visitors: Finn, Rose, the droids, all the droids. It seemed everyone had saved his ass one way or another. He felt foolish. Hux came by finally. They clasped their arms in a brotherly salute. He shared his previous feelings with Hux. 

"Nonsense, you took huge risks, for the right reasons; you had teams with you: they saved your ass, and you saved theirs, that's the deal."

He let that sink in. "I'm glad you believed in my Vision, Hux."

"I'm glad you had a Vision, Ben."

There was an embarrassed pause between them.

"Oh, wait 'till you see the _Finalizer_ ", Hux finally said, "it's completely changing. I'm thinking of re-painting it."

"Really? What color?" Ben was afraid to ask.

"There are some really wonderful tones of Eire green I saw, but maybe I can just let the students make their own designs on it?"'

" _Maker_!" he said, "aren't you moving a bit quickly there Hux?"

"Hardly. Some would say not quickly enough." 

"We still need you as General, though. We still have a mission: hunt down and destroy the slaver networks. That's still happening, right?"

"Right. And there’s the  _ Incinerator  _ to find and bring to heel. She was badly damaged, but had sixty thousand troops on board, though I suspect not all survived. They are sure to pick up replacement fighters over the next few months and regroup, or dissolve into their own little cells all over the galaxy.”

“We don't need as many destroyers for that. We need fast, stealthy ships with guerilla troops, not armies. We can really get the Resistance fighters to join us in this then..."

They spoke for some time, until Ben started to fall asleep again.


	27. Phasma's Nebula

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's another sacrifice. It hurts.

When he woke up again, it was quiet. He saw a new book of poetry on his side-table. He opened it randomly:

> _ I was dead, then alive. _
> 
> _ Weeping, then laughing _
> 
> _ The power of Love came over me, _
> 
> _ and I became fierce as the Lion, _
> 
> _ then tender like the Evening Star. _

"A place for poets", the cab driver had said. 

Morning started and he was discharged. He ate, washed and saw himself in the mirror. He looked a fright: nearly bald, an angry red splotch covering half his face - the side without the scar - that side almost looked handsome now. His big ears stuck out like when he was thirteen. Rey had called him her "Beautiful Monster". He would be wearing that moniker for the next few months. 

He dressed in the "Solo" outfit they had found for him on Coruscant. Then he went to see her.

When he came in, she was crying softly, holding Leia's hand. Leia got up, walked over to him, hugged and kissed him and said: "I'll leave you two alone" then left. He knew then.

A life for a life.

He sat with Rey, took her hand, and looked into her eyes, the way they were glazed over confirmed what he felt. The fetus was dead or dying. He felt a flash of anger rise and let it pass. That baby had been made in so much love, it seemed unfair it should die. 

"When?" he asked.

"This morning. It's a simple procedure. Better than waiting it out, the doctor said. I thought so too."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I'm sorry too."

He kissed her hand, then to take their minds away from the inevitable pain, started telling her about Hux's plans and it cheered her some, in between bouts of crying. He played it hopeful, for her sake. He left when Rose came in. She gave him a hug and he just made it out the door before his own tears started blinding him. Leia found him and led him back to the room he had just vacated where he could finally let himself go. 

***

At the official ceremony, the heroes were awarded medals and plaques, and Phasma was honored for her sacrifice. A panel of astrophysicists had calculated that the supernova would resolve into a nebula within five years, so they named it Phasma's Nebula. 

There was a functions dinner after the ceremony and for a while, the team talked about future plans. Rose would perfect her education; Finn would start his. Hux would be in charge of his School for the Arts. The General Rtfguyhl from the Woeurlj System had been asked to join the panel that would veto other peace heroes. That panel included Leia, who announced she would step down after a year. Poe was already drawing up plans to organize the anti-slaver militias, with Chewbacca's support. They invited Ben and Rey to join them: it would be the best way to find and save force-sensitive children - or just people - to train in the ways of the Force.

They were aboard The  _ Finalizer _ , which would be renamed  _ Aphrodite _ . Ben realized they were homeless. He said so to Rey.

She looked at him, cocking her head. She still had pale scar tissue blotches across her face and her hair was starting to grow in, giving her a boyish look that made him smile. "There's a saying, I think it goes: "Home is where the heart lies"?" she asked. 

"Well yeah. But I was hoping for a place more...I don't know, permanent?"

"I see. Then let's make it permanent."

"Huh?" He wasn't following. She reached and grabbed one of his ears, pulled him close and kissed him. 

"I love you, Ben Solo. Do you love me?" She put her hands in his. 

"Yes I do. I do love you, Rey..." he suddenly understood what she meant. He knelt before her. 

"Rey..."Nobody", would you take my family name? Would you marry me?"

"Yes I would, my  _ Beautiful Monster _ ."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And...we're done!  
> This is the accompanying music:  
> [Reylo Theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JGe5GAhOf4)  
> Considering their relative freedom, I can make a short series of their adventures, as they hunt down slavers, rescue orphans, and found a school of Grey jedi healers and warriors, all the while making passionate love like young lovers will. Thank you for your support!

**Author's Note:**

> Done !  
> Please leave comments!  
> And remember: _"Sharing is caring."_
> 
> The adventures of the Solo Dyad continue here in a deep dark sequel: [Slaver's Bane](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23111632)


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